EVERY time I switch on the radio or open a newspaper I find reports of yet another individual or group calling for a cull.

Badgers, some species of duck, deer, foxes, Canada geese, moles, pigeons, parakeets, seagulls — one could go through the alphabet.

Apparently anything with four legs or feathers is 'public enemy no 1'. Then there are the plants like ragwort that have to be destroyed albeit the only food of the Cinnabar Moth caterpillar.

Yet surely it is we homo sapiens who are creating the problem. Exeter GP Pippa Hayes was recently castigated for her involvement in the Stop at Two Campaign (Families decide on how many children, Letters, June 26).

It seems that if some human beings want to contribute to over-populating the world it's no one else's business. Really? So, if some families are free to have as many children as they can and people indulge in serial monogamy and with each new partner produce yet another family the rest of the population must provide education, medical treatment, housing, clothing, food and suffer lack of elbow room without comment?

Then, of course, it's everyone's right to own a car. Moreover, should the situation arise, we demand access to expensive drugs and equipment to keep us alive artificially.

We have concreted over so much land for roads, hospitals, schools, food and clothing outlets and homes, resorted to intensively produced crops and the cruelty of battery farming to accommodate our burgeoning population that there is now nowhere for the wild creatures to go.

We can no longer admire their beauty and grace but call them ugly, dirty, dangerous disease carriers and complain about the noise, their droppings, the fact that they are scavenging and ripping open plastic bags.

As an aside, why people have to use plastic bags is a mystery to me. Use an old fashioned bin with a lid and wrap things in newspaper – simples.

I am filled with outrage when I see small children chasing and kicking seagulls and pigeons while parents look on benignly.

When I was a child it was always a thrill to share our chips and sandwiches with the gulls at the seaside or to buy a pack of seed from the vendors in Trafalgar Square and have photographs taken of pigeons feeding from our hands.

I do not remember any incident of gulls or foxes attacking people.

I do remember a very happy childhood and the wonder, love and respect we had for all things that shared our space. What a very, very sad world we have created with our selfishness.

Whatever happened to All Things Bright and Beautiful? Sadly for the children of today they don't exist.

Christine Enefer

Clyst St Mary