One interesting story that seems to have escaped the news is all about our seagulls. You either love them or hate them but they’re about to make big news. Former Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross and fellow Tory Rachael Hamilton said Scots are being left “scared, attacked and traumatised” and called for a nationwide summit.
Both have stated that they’re concerned someone could in fact be killed. There were recent reports of “aggressive” seagulls that had attacked seven children in one month last year in Eyemouth, leaving one girl “with gashes to her scalp and blood running down her face”. Having checked the story personally the girl had food and the gull had swooped down to get the food and the injuries were not caused directly by the full but from a fall.
There have been many reports of gulls further inland and of course they’re moving inland looking for food. There’s no real data around seagulls and their numbers but like most animals they’re attracted to food. A seaside town like Eyemouth with its fish and chip shops, takeaway food and ice cream shops are going to be a magnet for these kind of birds. Does it call for a summit on the issue?
In Lowestoft, Suffolk, they’re regarded as a menace and they estimate numbers at 10,000 which is almost 15% of the human population. North Yorkshire council is developing what it calls a gull management strategy in response to increasing complaints of “gull mugging attacks” in towns from Scarborough to Whitby. In Lyme Regis, Dorset, authorities have introduced a public space protection order (PSPO) banning the feeding of birds to deter swooping herring gulls, having also tried flying drones and birds of prey to scare them away.
There are in fact over fifty species of seagull however only six are commonly found in the UK. Some experts are saying that numbers aren’t actually increasing, but the gulls are shifting away from where we might have expected to see them. There are lots of possible reasons including warming seas, falls in their prey species, changing in fishing practices, more violent winter storms. Although we find their behaviour unruly and even aggressive in fact this is their normal behaviour in the wild. Many experts say we are part of an ecosystem, and we’re in a biodiversity crisis, and we need to be a bit more tolerant of the other species around us.
The birds aren’t going anywhere, so people will have to learn new ways of living with them. So perhaps there is cause for a summit on the issue. Next time you’re enjoying a day out with fish and chips; take care, you never know who you might end up sharing your meal with.