(Above) geese in the field during the summer - most domestic birds are being brought indoors.

The threat of bird 'flu mutating into a disease that will affect humans is exercising a great deal of media attention. It is being compared to the influenza pandemic of 1918 which killed over fifty million people. Among the people I have talked to there is hardly any awareness of the issues, and often media treatment of the subject is dismissed as scare-mongering (although you could hardly accuse Panorama, a television programme of immense stature, of scare-mongering). Whatever the effect upon humans, there is no doubt that the disease will prove to be devastating for the birds of the air. Countless millions are being culled in an attempt to prevent any crossover between species. This represents science (or Science with a capital "S") attempting to interfere in the dismal Mendelian cull which nature (or Nature with a capital "N"?) has planned for the human race.