Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')
As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.
You asked:
- How many incidents of sheep worrying/attacks on sheep by dogs have been reported to your police force during 2017?
- How many sheep have been injured as a result of these attacks?
- How many sheep have been killed as a result of these attacks?
In Response:
We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I provide a response for your attention.
Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Corporate Development Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.
Data is based on a search of all wildlife / pets / domesticated animal related incidents in 2017. From these we have looked at those containing the keywords of livestock, sheep, lamb or field. Each incident has been reviewed to find those relevant to your request. Incidents have been broken down into those where a dog was actually witnessed in the field with the sheep and those where someone has just reported a dog was responsible.
Please note that often it is not actually known if a dog was responsible or another wild animal for attacking the sheep.
If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would expect that you to take into consideration the factors highlighted above so as not to mislead members of the public or official bodies or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.
With the above in mind, I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.
1.
Dog confirmed – 11
Dog not confirmed - 7
2. 5
3. 29
