Photo: Defra

THE western areas of the Yorkshire Dales are under threat again from yet another potentially fatal animal disease. But the cold and wet Easter weather may have come to the rescue.

Blue tongue disease is spread to cattle and particularly sheep by a biting midge which has spread all the way from South Africa via Europe, where it has already caused the deaths of an estimated 3,000 cattle. It was first identified in eastern England last summer.

Worryingly, it is particularly virulent amongst sheep, which makes it a major threat to upland farmers in the Dales. Just before Easter, after a confirmed outbreak in Lincolnshire, Defra vets extended a blue-tongue surveillance area well into North Yorkshire following a confirmed outbreak in Lincolnshire. It now ends less than five miles from Skipton from the Harrogate direction (see map).

This has already been a bitter blow to business at Skipton auction mart, for farmers in the surveillance zone cannot move their livestock to the sales.

Farmers and vets are, however, hoping that the foul Easter weather will have killed off any midges. As one observer remarked today: “Very few insects could have survived snow, hail, frost and gale-force winds. Perhaps some good can come out of this awful spell.”