Editor's Letter (May 7)

Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man. So goes this old Jesuit motto which implies that the best time to indoctrinate a person in a lifetime of religious belief is when they are young. No doubt it works for other interests as well, such as a love of reading and an appreciation of Nature. And how many of today’s fanciers can trace their interest in birds to their time as a youngster? Recently we’ve run several news stories in which youngsters have been found to harm birds (“Lads caught on camera”, April 23, and “Crossbow youths target geese”, page 4 of this week's issue). When kids are allowed to run riot, have no role models in their lives and nothing constructive to do with their time, is it any wonder these incidents happen? Furthermore, I’m no psychologist, but if a child has no respect for himself (through lack of parental care), then how can we expect him to respect other creatures? On this issue I usually feel that teachers get a bad press, but now I’m not so sure. Walking to work across the Millennium Bridge I run across countless school groups making their way to the Tate Modern. Recently I got caught behind a whole gaggle of youngsters, not more than six or seven years old, several of whom erupted in squeals of fear when they saw a common gull sitting calmly on one of the bridge’s suspension arms watching them walk by. I’m not a particular fan of seagulls myself, but he was a beautiful creature, a juvenile I suspect, with pristine white feathering and lovely brown tinges to his wings. I had hoped the teacher accompanying the children would have put their fears to rest by explaining that the bird was beautiful, something to be admired, rather than feared. But no. “What a yukky and horrible bird,” he told the children, as he ushered them out of harm’s way. A simple “He won’t hurt you – and isn’t he gorgeous?” might have made the difference between a youngster who may grow up detesting anything with feathers and a future birdlover...