Jill Proffitt, of East Cliff Walk, Teignmouth, of the Animal Rescue Centre, writes:

We would ask the owners of properties that have netting or wire on their roofs to prevent birds from nesting on it, to regularly check it and repair it, or better still remove it.

The RSPCA and councils have guidelines as to the type of netting that is suitable and acceptable to use, and those that are not.

On Saturday morning, we were called out in Teignmouth because a seagull was caught up in torn netting. unfortunately the business property in question would not have been available for us to have access to the building until Monday morning.

Whether you love or hate seagulls or pigeons, this would have been an horrendous death for this bird. It was was entangled in the netting and injured, and would have become totally dehydrated.

It would have been attacked by other seagulls and due to the terrible stress this bird was going through, it would have encountered a slow death, which is totally unacceptable.

Whether the RSPCA or myself came out we needed to contact the fire service to come to our aid, as the building was extremely tall. The fire service came out immediately and was able to disentangle the bird and bring it down and it is now recovering at the rescue centre.

Some of you may think what a waste of time and money. you could well be the people who have a dislike for these birds and have damaged netting on their roofs.

Many birds have died a slow death due to being tangled or trapped. For those of you who do think like that, I would say to you that this is a regular occurrence for myself, the RSPCA and the fire service.

if you feel this is a waste of public money then do something about it, because you are certainly part of the problem.