CREATURES labelled pests remain an emotive issue, with herring gulls and foxes high on the list.

OK, a rural fox is an obvious threat to free range poultry and sickly newborn lambs on farms and smallholdings.

Picking up dead hens after a fox raid is unpleasant. But when people pick up the ready-roasted carcass of a battery hen, off the supermarket shelf, do they really give a thought to the sort of trauma the bird endured before death released it?

Not so long ago throughout the English countryside foxes were tolerated to serve the requirements of the hunting fraternity.

Culling wasn't the motivation of the riders following the hounds.

As I've pointed out, during population declines of the animals, foxes were imported from the continent to run before the hounds.

A lot of people kill for pleasure, with the death of a wild creature the end product of the 'sport'.

In its basic definition culling means removing 'selected, inferior animals from a herd'. And it's also an euphemism for killing, which is some cases where wildlife is concerned, is necessary.

Over the years certain birds and animals have been branded as vermin because of the dangerous diseases they carry. Rats are an obvious example.

The rabbit is a farmland pest. But back in 1950s it was harrowing to find them dying slowly and painfully of myxomatosis.

The human response to this sort of creature can be linked to the attraction of cuddly toy animals in our infancy.

This probably accounts for the feeding of grey squirrels in municipal parks, along with the pavement picnics provided for street pigeons by some people.

Grey squirrels take songbirds' eggs and young.

Gulls and street pigeons foul up the urban-suburban environment. And cats are predators who also kill small birds. Yet the felines are still top of the pet pops with people like me.

As a species we're full of contradictions. We shed tears when Bambi's mother dies.

But few of us were prepared to speak out against the barbarism of hare coursing or the plight of animals in factory farm conditions.

And while foxes and badgers are being fed in urban and suburban gardens MAFF death squads could be killing badgers who are allegedly causing the spread of Bovine TB.

This strategy has been disputed by some independent scientists. But the killing continues. And I have to point out again that in the urban environment we are mainly responsible for the herring gull presence.

The edible litter, like discarded pizza slices and deposits made by binge drinkers, is welcomed by the seabird opportunists. After all, survival is the name of the game.

So before we cry wolf, we should re-examine the many faces of reality, from every angle, including the tidying up of our own behaviour.