Time to remove the protected status of Seagulls

Eight years ago on this blog I raised concerns about seagulls which were picked up by the Whitehaven News.

The problem of aggressive seagulls in Whitehaven has continued to get worse and was picked up this week by the Daily Mail.

I think it is time to remove the protected status of seagulls - they are not remotely endangered, we could not wipe them out if we tried - and they are becoming a health hazard because

1) we have foolishly allowed them to associate humans with food and

2) they have lost their fear of humans.

I think when it came out that primary school children at Jericho School had had to be escorted past the gulls into school after coming under attack from them was probably the tipping point for a lot of people.

We need to get the situation under control.

Comments

Jim said…
I think its another of those, one law for one place and one law for another, would work well.

Sure I agree 100% in West Cumbria seagulls are a menace and they absolutely do not need protection status. Though in other areas they are wanting the seagull to return, of course not in the same level we have them, but you know what i mean.


Its why a london centric blanket system never seems to work well. I do think a controlled culling method is the best system for West Cumbria, egg pricking that type of thing. Though sadly seagulls are no good to eat, they taste horrible due the crap they eat themselves (I know, I tried one once in Capetown) it was like taking a duck, rolling it around in dog muck then serving it, it was awful.

so we cant eat them, we need to slow the breeding down, also re-introducing a fear of humans would not really be a bad thing on the whole.
8:31 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
I think you're talking a lot of good sense there, Jim. It should be a local decision, and in many parts of the country where control is needed, pricking the eggs would be a better strategy than a cull.

Plus severe penalties for the idiots who feed them, an action which is very much against the interests of both seagulls and humans.
11:27 pm
Jim said…
Well yes, deliberately feeding seagulls is just plain asking for it and a pretty stupid thing to do. Though there are other measures which help, wheelie bins are a good example. As are public litter bins with the flaps on the openings of them.

Right now people need to be thinking of seagulls as "rats with wings", lets face it, no one goes out to feed the rats. For as long as they associate people with food we will have a problem. Getting their birds back on to their natural diet (herrings) would be a major victory - yes they are called herring gulls as that is what they would naturally eat, they are not known as "haddock, battered with a few chips on the side and mushy peas gulls.

3:22 pm
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