The evidence that our Government is responsive to pressure from industry, and the powerful, has been clear for some time, with the reluctance to fix a minimum price for alcohol, and the delay to plain packaging for tobacco products, but I wasn't expecting them to consider introducing a limited form of fox hunting again. They must be desperate.

Mind you, the traditional rearing of game birds just to slaughter them months later does indicate a certain attitude to wildlife that is probably explained by a feeling of superiority over the natural world, and a distortion of the concept of sport. The grouse can't even shoot back. With this background, the badger cull wasn't much of a step.

I was tempted to involve the Wildlife Crime Unit, a police operation, 15- strong, based in Scotland, but they are already rather busy with other humans who exploit wild creatures for their own gain, The crime sheet is surprisingly long from poaching, killing endangered species, illegal poisoning, destroying bat roosts, egg and nest collecting, to the importing of illegal species and rare body parts. These happen countrywide and, indeed, the Wharfe valley has a number of entries on the map showing the poisoning of birds of prey.

However, all this is of little consequence when we consider what our numbers, greed and indifference have done to the creatures that share the wider world with us. In most cases we don't even notice it's happening and this is partly because some of our philosophies suggest we are superior and that the world is there for our benefit.

It isn't – we are just part of the whole ecosystem but most of our practices ignore the fact that nearly all we do harms other life forms. Our agricultural techniques have been particularly vicious with the emphasis on one-crop deserts, cleansed with pesticides, and fed with artificial fertilisers that run off into streams to make them lifeless.

More than half the world's forests have disappeared, and with them many small mammals and birds, and we make little comment when the few remaining orangutans are threatened by forest destruction, and more oil palm plantations.

And, to cap our impact, we add CO2 to the atmosphere almost with disdain, so the seas become warmer, and more acid, the corals die and fish that haven't already been overfished struggle.

So, good fortune to the wildlife, worldwide and in the UK – we are rotten neighbours. We don't deserve you.