Pity the poor sheep. Every other animal has its champions. There are fox fanatics, dog obsessives, campaigners for cat welfare. Pigs, once a celebrity pet of choice, have their supporters, too. But it’s sheep who need friends right now, because they are, quite literally, under attack.
My Facebook pals are mostly country types and barely a day goes by without one of them posting a picture of a sheep mauled, often fatally, by untrained, unrestrained city-dwelling dogs.
Camilla Swift is joined by Ben Fogle to discuss the plight of sheep:
Sheep-worrying used to be quite a minor problem but it is now getting much worse in terms of the number of incidents. The police say that up to 15,000 sheep were killed last year, which is ten times higher than previous estimates. The National Police Chiefs Council has agreed to set up a group to investigate how well regional forces react to complaints of dog attacks.
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