I remember a saying from my young days that went "Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear". Unfortunately, nowadays, the amount you can believe has shrunk to a very small fraction. From the time you wake in the morning 'till you go to sleep at night, you are being bombarded with ads. and being brainwashed with other people's propaganda. Ad. wise, you are being told "if you have not" or "if you do not" you are missing out on life, are not a human being and are not keeping up with the Jones's.

The worst ones in my mind are those which claim to be environmentally friendly, when the truth is they should admit to having made the product MORE friendly towards the environment. Take an insecticide which claims only to kill Greenfly or a herbicide which only kills weeds and does not affect insects, Maybe its true in the strict sense. But without the Greenfly the Ladybirds starve and without the nettles the caterpillars of the Small Tortoiseshell and Red Admiral Butterflies have nothing to eat. Let us be honest in our advertising and in the use of the label "environmentally friendly". Let people know the real environmental impact of a product and its effects on the food chain, not try to lull them into a false sense of trust and moral honesty.

Probably as dangerous is the type of propaganda emanating from the media in general. How many people have you met that can not stand a species of mammal or bird, but when questioned will say that they have read or heard the bad press it has been given by certain individuals. The so-called accepted fact that "Hawks are responsible for the reduction in the numbers of song birds" to me seems utter drivel. I live in a town and feed the small birds in a garden visited regularly by two Sparrowhawks. My experience is that the local moggy can do 100% more damage to the small bird population and bad publicity for the cat is rare. Well, though if truth were told habitat destruction is probably the main cause of the decline."Lets blame the hawks" after all,how can they answer the charge.

Be careful, next time you come across an item that states species as being wholly evil, especially one containing scaremongering. Read it carefully:then see do you believe it and then check the facts before you decide you dislike the species. Chances are that the article is coming from a person or group who have something to gain by running a campaign of mis-information. After all, like humans, there is no animal that is all bad and no animal that is all good.

I am not asking you to believe what I have written on this page, what I am doing is asking you to consider the arguments put forward and make up your own mind as to their validity. After all this is just another piece of the daily bombardment of ads and propaganda that modern life subjects us to!.