‘Seagulls kill dog then return to attack toddler two weeks later.” “‘Psycho’ seagull ‘pecked and clawed’ at student.” “British seagulls are turning cannibal and EATING each other.” If the newspaper headlines are anything to go by, gulls are a growing threat to the British population. No longer satisfied with stealing chips from tourists at seaside towns, the birds are attacking everyone from unsuspecting holidaymakers to small children. And who could forget the grizzly tale of Gizmo the chihuahua, cruelly snatched away by a gull in Devon never to be seen again – that is, until a furry leg turned up a few weeks later. It is no wonder public opinion has turned against them.
The situation has turned so sour in Worcester that the city council is now proposing a gull cull. The council is considering applying for a licence to shoot the birds, with one councillor saying it is the only way to stop residents from “needlessly suffering”.
Tony Whitehead, a spokesman for the RSPB, says non-lethal tactics such as properly enforced bylaws to stop people feeding seagulls and preventing organic waste from being left in the street are more proportionate ways of dealing with the problem. “That would reduce a lot of the interactions that lead to calls for them to be killed, which feels a little bit over the top,” he says. “We need to deal with the conflict without demonising the birds.”
The culling licence would only be granted as a last resort, but the council says it has already spent £30,000 on other strategies over the past year, including decoy fake eggs that can lead to population decline as they encourage the birds to incubate them instead of real eggs. The council has used drones to seek out nests and also installed anti-gull bins that cover waste with metal grilles.
If the council gets the go ahead for the cull from Natural England, Whitehead is doubtful it would actually work. “In order to effectively remove gulls from a city like Worcester, year-on-year you would have to take out every single brood of gulls,” he says. “Gull nests aren’t that easy to find, but you would have to find every single one; it’s a massive task.
“Gulls can live for 15-30 years, so if you’re targeting youngsters, which is what is most commonly done, you’re going to have to do it every year for 15 years. Even if you do all that, how are you going to tackle birds coming in from the surrounding area?”
Some experts have suggested that not only would the cull be ineffective, it could actually perpetuate the problem. Viola Ross-Smith, a science communications manager for the British Trust for Ornithology who did her PhD on pecking responses in gull chicks, says: “Culling is disruptive to the population. Studies on herring gulls have shown it frees up nesting sites which can then attract other birds to fill the space. It can also cause the birds who are already there to shift around and disperse to other colonies, which is thought to have increased urban gull populations in certain parts of the country.”
She adds that some people think the culling of gulls over several decades in Bowland Fells, Lancashire, is part of the reason why so many urban gull populations have shown up around the country in the first place.
Whether the Worcester cull is licensed or not, it doesn’t look like people’s anger towards the birds will subside anytime soon, despite the best defences of bird experts. “I think people find them more threatening than they really are,” says Ross-Smith. “When gulls are swooping to get food, they’re not attacking – that’s just how they feed.”
