ANIMAL lovers have welcomed a Welsh Government call for new laws to deal with the "shocking impact" of abandoned and loose horses.
Minister for Natural Resources and Food Alun Davies said he had been struck by the public's response to a consultation on the issue.
He said: "Many gave personal accounts of how their lives have been affected by intimidation, through damage to property, the danger that abandoned horses can cause to people, as well as the health and welfare of the animals involved."
Mr Davies said several themes kept cropping up, such as the length of time to prosecute, difficulties in identifying horse owners, the cost to councils, and dangers to the public and enforcement officials.
He said animal charities had been swamped, and that "humane destruction is seen as unavoidable and in many instances preferable to letting horses suffer."
The AM added: "I am now clear that the current legislation available to enforcement authorities, designed many years ago to deal with small incidents of abandonment and fly-grazing, is simply no longer adequate to deal with the problem on the scale that we are now witnessing.
"This consultation has convinced me that continuing and urgent action is required to deal with the problem.
"Over half of those responding to the consultation supported a consistent approach, providing local authorities with powers to promptly and permanently remove horses causing a nuisance through fly-grazing and abandonment."
He said the Welsh Government would publish an action plan on the subject in the autumn, while also exploring new legislation.
Marianne Pettifor, company secretary of Swansea-based animal welfare charity The Pettifor Trust, said there were two key issues: large-scale "professional" fly-grazers who let their horses, which often ended up in dog meat, loose on land, and individuals who bought a horse on the cheap and kept them on a nearby common.
"It is an emotive subject and it has been going on for years," said Miss Pettifor. "I think the right people in the right places are taking notice now."
She said she knew of a horse that was run over twice in Gower, and of tethered horses having cigarettes stubbed out on them.
"Tethering is barbaric," she said. "A horse's only weapon is flight."
South Wales West AM Byron Davies has discussed the abandoned horse and fly-grazing issue with South Wales Police and Safer Swansea.
He said he welcomed any Welsh Government move to address the "huge problem".
The Welsh Conservative AM and former policeman added: "It is an organised crime issue."
