Lambing time – and new laws that reflect how the countryside has changed

It is lambing time across Nidderdale, and the landscape is busier than it looks. 

Fields that seemed quite a few weeks ago are now full of ewes and young lambs. Farming activity is running around the clock on many holdings. For the people working this land, it is the most important and demanding time of the year – the point at which everything they have worked towards either comes good or doesn’t. 

Today, new legislation comes into force that updates the law around livestock worrying for the first time since 1953. The Dogs (Protection of Livestock) (Amendment) Act 2025 reflects how much has changed in seven decades. Livestock numbers in England and Wales have doubled since the original Act. The countryside welcomes far more visitors, with far more dogs, than it once did. The law now reflects that reality. 

What has changed? 

The updated Act brings in several significant changes. The maximum penalty for livestock worrying rises from a £1,000 fine to an unlimited one. Police now have the power to seize and detain a dog where there are reasonable grounds to believe it has worried or attacked livestock, and to hold it while an investigation takes place. Officers can also take forensic samples from dogs and livestock to build a prosecution case. The law now covers incidents on roads and paths as well as in fields and enclosures. 

It is worth being clear about what livestock worrying means. It does not require a dog to make physical contact with an animal. A dog chasing or disturbing livestock can cause injury, miscarriage or lambs becoming separated from their mothers. Even without contact, the disturbance alone can affect the health and welfare of animals – particularly at this time of year. 

Farming and access – a balance 

Nidderdale National Landscape is criss-crossed by an extensive network of public rights of way running through working farmland. Farming and public access have always sat alongside each other here, and that is something worth protecting. 

Iain Mann, Nidderdale National Landscape manager, said: “Lambing is the point in the year when everything the farming community has worked towards either comes good or doesn’t. It is an intensely pressured time, and an incident during this period can be devastating – not just financially, but personally. Farming is at the heart of what Nidderdale is and how it looks, and the people who work this land put everything into it. The updated law reflects how much the countryside has changed since 1953. Nidderdale works because farming and access can sit well alongside each other here. We want to keep it that way.” 

The vast majority of people who visit Nidderdale with their dogs do so responsibly, and the landscape is all the better for it. Sheep and lambs are not always immediately visible from a path or gateway – being aware of what is happening in the fields around you is all it takes. 

Anyone can report incidents of livestock worrying to North Yorkshire Police.