Hairy Harvesters Hit North Yorks Heather...

North Yorkshire's heather moorlands are about to be alive with the sound of munching highland cattle.

Some 60 of the shaggy, big-horned mac-beasties have been drafted in to an area between the Vale of York and the Whitby coast as an experiment aimed at saving delicate young heather shoots which are otherwise at risk of being beaten up by bullying grass and bracken.

The cattle - presumably - eat the grass and leave the heather untouched and are an alternative to using 'slash-and-burn' clearance techniques or chemical weedkillers to preserve the dramatic purple heather.

The scheme is being introduced by a local farmer in conjunction with the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. You can read all about it in today's Guardian here, alternatively you can find the original release on the Government News Site.