Easter for most of us – whether religious, firmly secular, or somewhere in-between – is a time to celebrate rebirth and experience rejuvenation.

It’s hard not to feel your spirits rise as the skies clear and nature starts to burst into life again after a long, and this year particularly wet, winter.

Indeed many of us will use this Easter weekend, and hopefully some continuing April sunshine, to reconnect with both the natural world and family and friends. With Wharfedale being as blessed as it is with attractive countryside it’s certain that local beauty spots like Ilkley and Burley Moor and Otley Chevin Forest Park will be buzzing with visitors between Good Friday and Easter Monday.

That’s exactly as it should be, and will as always provide the knock-on benefit of giving local shops, cafes and other businesses a welcome spring boost.

However we all, residents and visitors alike, also share a responsibility to act properly in the environments we cherish to avoid causing harm – and that particularly applies to dog owners.

As demonstrated all too graphically in this week’s story about the attack on Otley Chevin, it only takes a few minutes for an uncontrolled pet to cause carnage among a flock of sheep and lambs.

And the danger extends to wildlife too, with ground-nesting birds on the moors especially vulnerable to marauding dogs.

Most of us are dog lovers, and no-one would begrudge an owner wanting to let their pet run free when it can, unfettered by boundaries and away from the danger of roads. But that has to be in the right place, well away from livestock, vulnerable wildlife and, for certain breeds, people and other dogs, too.

We all have a right to enjoy the countryside and our Easter weekend – and that includes farmers, smallholders, and the wild animals that bring our environment alive too.