Packham urges gardeners to give peace a chance in war on slugs

TV presenter Chris Packham has urged gardeners to “put yourself in the mind of the slug” and become tolerant towards the creatures.

The Springwatch host, 56, urged people to stop killing the garden pests.

“The slug’s been offered a free banquet. You have to expect it to eat it,” he said.

“If you’re planting a row of lettuces, you’re planting a free supermarket for molluscs.

“If you turned up at Sainsbury’s and they said, ‘And everything today is free’ you’d fill your basket, wouldn’t you? 0 Chris Packham says slugs are offered a free banquet

“That’s what humans would do. So put yourself in the mind of the slug.

“You have to find a degree of tolerance, find ways of managing slugs without killing them.”

Packham, who has previously called for wolves to be reintroduced back into the British countryside, said that gardeners were also harming hedgehogs and song thrushes by clamping down on slugs.

“If you make Draconian choices like, ‘I don’t want slugs and snails to eat my plants’, then you’re doing yourself out of hedgehogs, slow worms and song thrushes and that’s a tragic loss to the garden,” he said.

“The song of the thrush is the closest you’re going to get to a nightingale in the 21st-century British garden.”