Kill animals. ..to save trees

RABBITS, hares and other wildlife should be culled to help speed up the rate of tree planting, the chairman of the Forestry Commission says. Sir William Worsley said squirrels should be renamed ‘tree rats’ and seen as vermin.

The 63-year-old said the Government’s vow to treble the rate of tree planting by 2025 will fail unless animals are shot or trapped.

Saying rabbits would be ‘smiling from ear to ear’ at the sight of new woods, he added: ‘There’s nothing that gives me more pleasure than seeing a deer running through the woods, but I know the damage that deer will do.’