Love thine enemy

I dislike the word ‘vermin’ when it is applied to farm wildlife. The term conjures up the loathing and abhorrence you feel about bed bugs or ticks. To loathe an animal and wish its elimination because it eats your crop, kills your poult or digs up your lawn is irrational.

I much prefer ‘pest’. Pests cause tremendous damage but the pest has no more malice towards man in doing so than a crop-flattening wind or chick-killing Tune downpour. A pigeon eats food destined for human consumption, but its greed is not driven by a wish to make man go without. The nest-raiding rats and grey squirrels we trap are not killed with vengeance in mind, it is simply a