IT was with consternation that I read in last Friday's Malvern Gazette Lindsay Holder's article about a buffalo herd about to be let loose in St Wulstan's Nature Reserve.

It was only when I noted the significance of the date of publication (April 1) that I realised it was all a glorious spoof on the lines of Richard Dimbleby's wonderful hoax back in the sixties, played on the serious-minded viewers of Panorama, when he expounded at length, and with a perfectly straight face, on the Italian spaghetti harvest.

All I can say to the perpetrators of this latest April Fool trickery is 'pull the other one, it's got Swiss cowbells on!'

MISS P R JONES, Malvern Naturalists' Field Club, Nixon Court, Callow End.