IT'S been a bad week for robins - and a bad one, too, for Wyevale Garden Centres.

What on earth can have persuaded bosses at a supposedly "wildlife-friendly" establishment - big on bird seed and bird tables and that kind of thing - to send in the death squad to wipe out a family of robins? And who was bright spark at DEFRA who signed the licence to kill?

Had it been diseased pigeons or marauding gulls dive-bombing the cafeteria then the action might have been better justified and the firm might - but only might - have got away with it. But three or four robins? Come on!

Food hygiene rules are pretty tight these days and businesses have to watch out for eagle-eyed inspectors. But somehow you get the feeling that even the most zealous public health official might just turn a blind eye to a robin or two flitting around in the roof space in a garden centre.

We don't know how many customers had complained. But it's a fair assumption that had there been a welter of whinges, then Wyevale would have said so. Anyway, when it comes to bird droppings, robins aren't famous for their heavy payload.

No, just about everyone - with the exception of Wyevale management - seems to agree that alternative, somewhat less terminal measures could and should have been taken.

Whatever the firm's views on the welfare of Britain's friendliest little bird, you might think that, in its own interests, it at least have considered the public relations aspect. Someone, somewhere might have paused and considered how shooting robins would play with the public - and particularly the paying customers.

The only people who came out of this debacle with any credit are the whistle-blowers. The robins may be gone but Wyevale - and DEFRA, come to that - have been left covered in guano.