The Royal Horticultural Society, arguably the UK’s foremost gardening charity, has had a change of heart when it comes to our garden gastropods and whether we should be poisoning them. But what about other animals deemed pests, or those who simply don’t have a convenient role or value in our human lives? Claire Hamlett discusses.

ALL ANIMALS: Bringing you a digest of news and opinion pieces you might have missed from the past week, covering all things animal justice.

Bringing you a digest of news and opinion pieces you might have missed from the past week, covering all things animal agriculture, animal protection and environmental justice.

A rare case of avian influenza infecting a human living in England was reported this week. Bird-to-human transmission is rare and human-to-human rarer still, but with UK outbreaks now double last year’s and predictions of Europe’s worst bird flu epidemic ever - coupled with the high mutation rate of influenza and cases of H5N1 detected in foxes, seals and other mammals - a human bird flu pandemic feels closer than ever.

NEWS: Gamekeepers and people who like to gun down animals have been told that certain species such as carrion crows and jackdaws can now be shot as the government updates its definition of ‘livestock’ to include game birds.

BLOG: In case you missed it, the RSPB - one of Britain’s foremost animal protection charities - advised its members to lure badgers to electric fences using sweet treats. The reaction from other groups was rightly damning, but once again it demonstrates the insidious nature of speciesism amongst our most hallowed animal-loving organisations.