AN appeal was this week issued to gardeners about the dangers of dumping grass and garden clippings on moorland, which can prove fatal to grazing animals.

Paddy Newton, welfare officer for Dartmoor Commoners? Council, said summer months often brought incidents of animal poisonings as a result of eating garden waste.

Miss Newton said: ?Grass cuttings can ferment after just half a day and if anybody dumps privet clippings, it?s curtains for anything that eats it.

?Leylandii clippings are terrible, but the worst thing is yew ? just enough to fill a matchbox will kill a horse stone-dead.?

Miss Newton warned it was an offence to dump garden waste on moorland or feed ponies in any way at all.

The death of a pony on Whitchurch Down last week sparked a search of the area, which revealed grass clippings and leylandii had been dumped on land near the top of the public footpath from Down Road to the common.

Although an examination could not establish the cause of death of the young mare, which appeared in good condition, Maureen Saunders of the Horse and Pony Protection Association said it was worrying to see the piles of garden waste on the lower part of Whitchurch Down.

Ms Saunders said: ?The cuttings were still heating up and about a dozen ponies were there. We immediately shooed the ponies off and distributed the cuttings further around to stop them heating,? said Maureen.

?They are an enormous hazard to ponies, who of course think they?re easy pickings. You can?t blame them doing it, but then of course the result is severe colic and possibly death.?