A Yorkshire farmer is calling for a ban from councils on helium balloons after he found one of his in-lamb ewes dead.

Jim Mallender and his wife were checking the ewes near Skipton when they came across the dead ewe with helium balloons hanging from its mouth.

This was not the first time Jim had endured the consequences from these balloons.

He said: “We’ve always been picking up these helium balloons out of the fields. Eight-ten-years-ago we lost a cow.”

Following the incident Jim wishes for councils to consider banning the balloons, as some have done with sky lanterns.

“It’s very frustrating and annoying”, he continued.

“When you have livestock, no matter what type of livestock, yes, you end up with dead stock, but you do everything you can to avoid that, or to try prevent that.”

Jim also believes that due to the limited helium resource available, it is ‘far more important for other things’.

He continued: “Education is key, but education is key to a lot of these things, because if you start at the bottom and work up, if the kids don’t want it because they understand it can kill, then adults aren’t going to buy them.”