Let’s talk about wild beasts. Specifically, let’s talk about gulls, since they’ve been in the news here lately. They’re vicious creatures who dive bomb innocent civilians and steal their ice cream cones. Visit to the coast and you’re gambling with your life and your sanity. I’m exaggerating, but at least I admit it.
Yes, friends, the British press is getting hysterical again, so let’s settle for just one link. Enough is plenty.
Before I tell you the terrible tales, I should let you know what I’ve learned about gulls:
They’re not really called seagulls. They’re gulls, and since we’ve already irresponsibly established that they’re vicious we don’t want to make ‘em mad, so we’ll call them what they want to be called. If you don’t believe me that they don’t like being called seagulls, just ask one.
If you dare.
According to Wikipedia, they’re “of the family Laridae in the sub-order Lari. . . . An older name for gulls is mew . . . This term can still be found in certain regional dialects.” That, irrelevantly, explains a song that mentions seamews. I always wondered what they were. Play nice or I’ll sing it to you.
But back to gulls. (Nice birdy. I’m leaving part of my sandwich right here for you. Leave the finger. I need that.) There have been some incidents, and as usual if they happened to me I wouldn’t be happy about them, but I don’t know how new, or newsworthy, any of this is.
In the most serious incidents, a small dog—a yorkie, a breed that can get so small they’re not really big enough to be dogs—was killed by gulls and a tortoise was ditto. With those two things at the top of the page to draw our eye, column inches have been devoted to cafes and take-away joints trying to protect their customers (and their food) from birds and to children and adults being frightened, and occasionally hurt, by the birds.
Ever since I moved here, I’ve been reading about problems with gulls, or seeing segments on the local news. Or protecting my scones from them. Cornwall’s full of seaside towns and villages, and seaside towns and villages are full of summer visitors, and with the visitors come picnics and ice creams and chips (those are french fries if you’re on the left-hand side of the Atlantic) and so on. And gulls are nothing if not scavengers. If food’s around, they want to know about it. As a result, in some places they now nest on roofs instead of (or more likely, in addition to) the rocky offshore islands they used to like. I seem to remember hearing about a street where the letter carrier refused to deliver mail after getting swooped on once too often. That was a few years ago, then the story disappeared and we never found out what, if anything, got done.
Oddly enough, although gulls sit around on our roof and our neighbors, they don’t do anything more right here than yell and get into the garbage if a fox has already torn the bag open. As far as I know, they don’t even tear the bags themselves, although I can’t swear to that.
In response to this latest flap, the prime minister, David Cameron, has pontificated—sorry, announced that we need to have a big discussion on the subject. He’s counting on the subject disappearing with the summer leaves before he has to figure out needs to be said in the discussion, never mind what has to be done–or worse, have to spend money on it. Should we kill all the gulls? Shut down the seaside? Issue visitors with plastic bubbles?
Saint Ives used to cull gulls and use birds of prey to keep them from nesting. They also had a van driving around town playing loud noises to scare them off. What the van did to the tourists, I don’t know. I wouldn’t think they’d be crazy about loud noises themselves. It probably kept them from nesting on the roofs too.
The thing is, all of that is expensive. A cull costs £10,000. We’re in an age of austerity. That it’s artificially induced (in my not particularly popular opinion) is beside the point. Local governments are having to choose between libraries and leisure centers and then realizing that they can’t afford either. So St. Ives is trying flapping colored flags. I don’t know how well that’ll work on gulls, but I tried flapping computer disks to keep the birds (blackbirds, I think) off my raspberries. After the first day or two, they were onto my tricks. They not only ate the berries, they set up their laptops on the outside table.
Truro is trying paint that reflects the sun’s UV rays. My guess is that we’ll be seeing gulls with sunglasses in the center of town.
When this first came out, I heard a scientist interviewed on the BBC’s Radio 4. He’d designed a study of urban gulls with an eye toward finding a solution to the problems they present. Embarrassingly enough–not for him but the the government–it was first funded but then defunded before it ever got going. It’s an age of austerity. We can’t afford that sort of frippery until everyone gets hysterical and starts yelling that someone had better do something. Even if it’s random and ineffective.
The buggers always half-inch my chips whenever I am at the coast. It is sort of tradition, I suppose. Not one of my favourite ones, though, it must be said.
LikeLiked by 2 people
No, but they love it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Herring Gulls (the really big ones with evil beaks) are the worst…but I have never really been attacked by one.
Not that it is much of a problem in Sussex…well..actually it probably is, on the edge bits of Sussex like Brighton but I presume the gulls don’t like Brighton much because of all the hipsters…
Maybe if I start shouting loudly something will be done about the Hipster infestation…
I once got dive-bombed by a pigeon, but that was in Belgium…so if you picture is anything to go by, birds are more of a problem on the continent!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m still trying to get a workable definition of hipster into my mind, so I’m going to avoid commenting.
LikeLike
They are interesting creatures. We have nice romantic notions of gulls crying and circling in a beautiful sky. Nothing wrong with that. But they are scavengers as well and are pretty ruthless and will even attack and kill each other to get food.
A bit like us really. Don’t know how to stop them interfering with human activity. I like the flapping flags idea and the paint. Gull culls not such a good idea. All the best.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I don’t like them snatching my food, and I’d hate to have them attacking my cats or dog, but we do all need to keep in mind that they’re simply animals doing what they do. They’re scavengers, so they scavenge. We expect the world to be arranged for our convenience and get outraged–and surprised–when it isn’t.
LikeLike
But but… Gulls are cute creatures that… DANCE! Yup, they dance to mimic the sound of rain hitting the soil, which then confuses tasty worms… who come up to see what’s going on… and get gobbled by the gulls! Here’s a link to a Youtube clip:
LikeLiked by 2 people
Clever. I had no idea.
LikeLiked by 1 person
As with most of life’s problems, this issue is nothing that a few well-placed cats couldn’t cure.
LikeLiked by 1 person
They may need to be big damn cats. See A Pict in PA’s comment about a gull fracturing her cat’s skull.
LikeLike
The Afrikaans for “gull” is “meeu”, pronounced the same as “mew” but with the vowel sound stretched out. Apparently our languages share a common root here.
If you ask me, people should just stop feeding the gulls. Because people do that. It’s great fun to hold a potato chip in your hand and have a gull swoop down and snatch it from your fingers. Until the gull grabs your finger, or decides the chips in your plate are also fair game. If we stop teaching them to associate people with food they’ll stop being a menace. It’s the same principle as don’t feed the bears/raccoons/monkeys/baboons (depending on where you are).
LikeLiked by 2 people
And yet somehow there’s always someone who can’t figure out the difference between a kitty and a lion….
LikeLike
I own a property in St Ives and we visit a number of times each year. I have been dive bombed by gulls trying to steal my ice-cream or pasty, and sometimes they succeed. However, humans are to blame. People leave waste food and food wrappers all over the place and birds (and rats) soon learn how to obtain food. The gulls can be a problem, but we humans need to change our sloppy behaviour.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there. As I think about the places where they’re not a problem, I haven’t seen food left lying around.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m glad someone on THAT side of the Atlantic said it. I used to hold retreats in the woods in Wisconsin. If I was sloppy, the bears came to clean up. I learned fast how to be tidy.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Those bears do put the gull problem in perspective, don’t they? We used to camp in northern Minnesota, in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. We always tried to tree our packs, but the trees there are small and we never did manage to get them far enough from the trunk. We were lucky, though. No bears ever got to them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think I’d prefer an attack by a gull to an attack by a bear!!
LikeLiked by 2 people
I think we can agree on that. Just to start with, a person’s in better shape to complain about it afterwards.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Maybe we should import wild bears into English seaside holiday resorts :-)
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m not sure that’s your best idea. They don’t have much in the way of a sense of humor, and they won’t wear bathing suits, no matter how politely you ask.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ellen, you disappoint me!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Did I say I objected? I’m talking about shocking the public here.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, I wouldn’t want to cause panic :-)
LikeLiked by 1 person
I thought not.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You have gulls, we have raccoons. We are in a constant battle against nature and as we all know, nature is RELENTLESS!
At least our raccoons don’t attack people – although they can get a bit aggressive sometimes. They *simply* get into garbage and cause property damage … and like gulls, poo where it’s not welcome ;)
LikeLiked by 2 people
Minneapolis has an urban raccoon problem and the city ended up replacing all the garbage cans (which were standard issue so the trucks could roll through with one of those lift and dump thingies) with can whose lids had an overbite. It means that if you’re not human–or I suppose a bear–you can’t lift it. Since we didn’t have an urban bear problem (Duluth does), they didn’t get broken into. Clever.
I still saw them from time to time, creeping in and out of the storm sewers.
LikeLike
They are clever little devils and not only get into garbage but break into homes looking for a warm place to nest. We had $400 damage to our roof from a raccoon trying to break into one of our roof vents. I don’t think they are so cute anymore :(
LikeLiked by 1 person
The breaking into houses I didn’t know about. Squirrels do roughly the same thing, though–and then chew through wiring and start fires. I’m not saying that to minimize the raccoon problem but because it comes to mind and, hey, I have to say something, right?
LikeLike
LOL! … nature does what nature needs to do :)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Chipmunks are our problem. Every area has its own animal that does what it does, and we humans think they are the ones encroaching.
LikeLike
True.
LikeLike
I. Hate. Gulls.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Whoa! Very scary punctuation.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Leftover feelings from The Birds.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I managed not to see it. No regrets.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was hearing about this on Radio 4 when I was in the UK (might have been the same interview actually) and it struck me as a diversionary tactic. If Cameron, Osborne et al make such a big fuss over the issue of gulls, it might just stop everyone remembering that what they actually want to cull are the poor and the elderly.
I’ve had run ins with gulls. I know they can be a pest. They’ve intimidated me out of outdoor eating. One fractured my cat’s skull in an unprovoked attack. But I think libraries, leisure centres and other community facilities are of far greater importance and much more deserving of funding than dealing with gangs of birds.
LikeLiked by 2 people
If it’s a diversionary tactic, it’s not one that’ll last very long. Autumn is coming. (No, I don’t mean to sound like Game of Thrones. But it is. Really.) I’d agree with your priorities.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The last time I was in St Mawes (it was a while ago) there was a ‘polite request’ that food not be taken down on to the beach to avoid attracting gulls. Not sure the gulls (or the people) took much notice. We’ve a big problem in Scarborough and Whitby with gulls picking off small dogs from back gardens … where’s Alfred Hitchcock when you need him (or a man with a gun and a good aim!). The poop they share around is no fun either …
LikeLiked by 2 people
If it makes you feel any more warmly toward them, they’re good parents, not just defending their chicks but bringing them shells to play with. On the other hand, they’re terrible neighbors and will eat other gulls’ chicks.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Random and ineffective might be better than a government-funded solution that would be precisely targeted and ill-effective i.e. causing more harm than good. And, thanks so much for mentioning “Saint Ives” so that I have the whole “seven wives, each wife had seven cats…”mini-saga stuck in my head. Have a nice weekend :)
LikeLiked by 2 people
Oops. Sorry about that. Now it’ll be going through my head. Vengeance is sweet.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Ha, it worked :)
LikeLiked by 1 person
C’mon, I know the only way to get an earworm out of your head is to plant it in someone else’s (it’s the same with colds), but that was mean.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Actually, it’s s fond memory. We used to listen to silly songs and stories in the car when our daughter was young. This was on one of the “Wee Sing” tapes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Whew. You can’t imagine the guilt I was carrying.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A 12G and some nets among other things will control them. ;)
LikeLiked by 2 people
I didn’t include this in the article, but someone tried that and it ended up with a neighbor being shot with an airgun. Fortunately, the 12-gauge wasn’t involved.
LikeLike
… Would be unlawful in the UK… Gulls are protected….
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good point. I’m not sure why, since they don’t seem to be even remotely endangered.
LikeLiked by 1 person
There’s actually only 140 000 breeding pairs in the country. They may seem numerous, but when you compare them to the number of feral pigeons in the country… 550 000…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I wonder who manages to count them all.
Seriously, though, I would never have guessed. I do know that they nest in colonies, so I’m guessing they spend their lives living fairly social lives–meaning they concentrate in a few areas and give us they impression that there are gazillions of them.
LikeLike
Isn’t there a bird census each spring… run by the RSPB?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Now that you mention it, yes, there is. But getting them to register is difficult. You know what anarchists birds are.
LikeLike
Oh my. I do not feed the gulls, ever. They are pushy here, too, but not like that, or at least, not that often. That being said, I wouldn’t advise carrying a handful of food at the beach…
LikeLiked by 2 people
One did once try to snatch a plastic bowl of scones out of our naive hands. But in most places I’ve been, for some reason, they don’t seem to bother people, even when they’re eating.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Ellen,
There are lots and lots of seagulls at the beaches here, but I’ve never seen them to be obnoxious.
Have a great day,
Pit
LikeLiked by 1 person
It would be interesting to know what tips the situation from just fine into unmanageable.
LikeLike
I spent a few weeks photographing gull families, two on fishing boats and two on restaurant rooftops, a few years ago. The youngsters are white with black polka dots–very cute. One set of parents hated me. They would spot me as I got out of my car and mom or dad would attack, swooping over me and emitting gull curses. Another set of parents thought I was just fine and seemed to shove their chick at me so I got macro portraits while mom and dad puffed their chests out. Also, I taught at a junior hi 100 miles from the sea. Our custodian fed the lunch leftovers to the gulls and we soon had more gulls than students and, when they got excited, they could drown out the sounds of instruction in the classrooms. Of course, during this time the roof of the lunchroom and the sidewalks turned an ugly shade of white.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love the sound of gulls, but that many of them would be too much even for me.
LikeLike
Yes, I love the sound of gulls, sea lions, fog horns and waves. It means I live by the sea after 27 years inland. I also liked the gulls near The Mumbles in Wales. They’re smaller and sound like they are having a good old gossip when chattering among themselves. Of course the solution to the gull problem is closed trash cans and humans not leaving their food trash around. The fishermen here consider them the clean up crew and know they have their place. Here’s some pics of gull families: https://goo.gl/photos/9E8fJ6Ehddot6ciS6
LikeLiked by 1 person
If anyone’s making their way through the comments, do follow the link. There are some nice shots, including half-grown gull chicks, which I’ve never seen before.
LikeLike
I have no idea. Maybe it’s the incredibly long beaches?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think Rhys Jones hit on the answer–or at least part of it–in his comment about litter attracting them. As I think of the places where they’re not a problem, I can’t remember seeing food left in the open. Trust us to leave litter around and then blame the birds for responding to it in ways we don’t like.
LikeLike
In Bristol they were offered contraception. I believe it worked.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh my. I’m glad I didn’t get hired to provide the counseling that would have to go along with that.
Or, no, it doesn’t work that way with birds, does it?
LikeLike
Our local football team (Brighton & Hove Albion) are called “The Seagulls”. I wonder if a man (or woman) dressed in a big seagull costume running along the seafront would frighten the gulls away? I’ve only once been pooped on by a seagull, but that night I won £25 on the lottery.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The team came up when, in the name of research, I punched I don’t remember what involving gulls into Google. I gave a bit of thought to whether I could work it into the post but gave up. I have a sports allergy. I know zilch about football–American or otherwise.
I’m not sure how well that giant seagull idea would work. I have a picture in my head of the gulls laughing so hard they can’t fly, but I’m not going to try to pass that off as a prediction.
Congratulations on the lottery win. Now if it had been that giant seagull, think how much you’d have taken home….
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think you’ve nailed the explanation. We don’t have much of a gull problem, though there must be thousands of them along the beaches, but for some unknown reason there isn’t much of a litter problem either. The one spot where folks seem to go to feed the gulls has huge numbers of them hanging around, but they don’t get aggressive unless you start out feeding one. Then the entire flock descends. Perhaps being attacked by these hordes of gulls discourages the idiots (sorry, persons) who think feeding them is clever or fun.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Possibly, she said wearily, but then the next idiot comes along and does the whole thing again.
LikeLike
I’m still traumatised from having a gull snatch a pasty out of my hand in Mevagissy (in 1996).
Here in North Wales our local councils are talking about fining people who feed gulls. But I’m not sure how they will differentiate between the people who feed them deliberately or the ones who are unlucky to be mugged for their haddock and chips (and the paper it came in).
See the gulls up here run a scam. They land in front of a likely looking person (or couple) with food. They stand on one leg and look pathetic or they put two legs down, but limp. They keep one eye on the food as they sidle up to you (like the childrens game – it might be ‘Statues’ – who cares). You look away, then look again and they’re closer – like something out of Dr Who. You admire the view for a minute, then the gull snatches your dinner and flies off, laughing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Which is why–yes, really–some of them are called laughing gulls.
LikeLiked by 1 person
My god this topic elicits conversation!
Part of my vision for my future involves unnlimited bowls of cat food at my front door, regular trips to the deep woods with backpacks of snickers bars ( for the bears ), fresh burger and steaks left at alligator alley, and daily trips to the beach with lots and lots of food for the gulls.
Ahhhh, to be trully despised.
:)
LikeLiked by 1 person
One of the things I learned as an editor and am relearning as a blogger is that I can’t predict what’ll get people going. I had no idea this one would, and I can’t really explain why it happens.
Before you head out with that backpack full of snickers bars, do make sure that bears can eat chocolate. I know it’s poisonous for dogs, and not good for cats either. Unless you plan to poison the bears so you can add an extra swath of people to the list of despisers.
LikeLike
So, I will surely look into the health effects of chocolate upon bears before I begin on this course of action. If I find that it is harmless, then nobody can fault me for feeding the bears. If chocolate turns out to be harmfull, then I have heard that bears enjoy beer. And I just looked and my state does not issue drivers permits to bears.
My plans for my retirement years are coming together!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s going to be an interesting–and short–retirement. I’ve never heard any retirement plans that come close to challenging yours.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Do you know, I realized that this idea has been brewing for a long time. I looked back in a book of photos and found a sign that I painted in 2003 ( I think that I sold it in a gallery in California ) that talks about feeding wild animals.
So I posted a photo of the sign on my blog.
Do you think that I will first be lynched by the mob, devoured by the bears, or carried off by the gulls? Either way, I will go out in style. And I don’t need to save up any money at all for such a short retirement.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Carried off by gulls, I think, with your shirt tails flapping in the breeze. What a way to go.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have had encounters with both American gulls and British coastal gulls, and you cannot tell them apart by conduct.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s the accent. You have to listen to the accent.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love the thought of seagulls using your wifi :)
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m not so sure I trust them with it. What if they–. Wait a minute. What is that we’re afraid will happen when someone piggybacks on your wifi? Whatever it is, they’d do it. I just know they would. I’m putting an extra seven passwords on it right now.
LikeLike
Blackbirds with laptops still has me smiling.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’d smile even harder if you could see them flying with those things. They’re amazing.
LikeLike
The Gulls at Margate FC sit on top of the burger bar waiting to pounce on the unwary. A fight over chips between a Lesser-Black Backed and Margate Blue could be an interesting spectacle – probably be a main event to overshadow the football on the pitch.
The BTO publish the Bird Atlas giving the distribution of the UK’s species. In the summer, the Gulls flock to the seaside at the same time as the Humans – hence a conflict of interests ;-)
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’d be tempted to buy an extra order of chips, throw it in the opposite direction, then gobble my own. Which goes against everything everyone’s said (and I’ve agreed with) about not feeding them and not leaving garbage lying around.
LikeLike
In the Telegraph article, David Cameron stated that “a big conversation” needed to happen. Does he mean with the gulls? If so, I want video of this gull summit. It’ll probably be more effective than any Parliamentary session he has had for years.
LikeLiked by 2 people
How naive can I be? I assumed he meant with people, but this makes sense. You know about a group of owls being a parliament of owls and a group of crows being a murder of crows? Gulls are apparently (I just checked) a screech of owls. This is totally irrelevant, isn’t it? But having looked it up, I had to use it. It came to mind because of the parliament of owls, who are a hell of a lot better behaved than the parliament of parliamentarians.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Give Cameron the bacon sandwich, and watch what happens when he meets with the screech.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re not a good person, are you? I’m putting the bacon on to fry right now.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Go on. Do it!
LikeLiked by 1 person
You might enjoy the comment just below this one.
LikeLike
D’you know what, Ellen? Gulls remind me a lot of the present government: they’re loud, vulgar, attack the weak, squat on our very housetops watching our every move, and they’re opportunistic. Hey, I’d back a cull of the current government as well!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Whee! I didn’t see that coming! But now that you mention it…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Replace them with the Gull Party?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Impractical. I just read that there are fewer gulls than pigeons.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The pigeons are London-centric and would just perpetuate the status quo.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I should have known that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Poor gulls! The gulls here in my fishing village in Sicily are immaculately well-behaved and docile as anything, because the fishermen throw them masses of fish guts to eat every day. They are stuffed, and probably fly about purely to combat obesity.
So what I want to know is, what are the English doing with their fish guts? We do enough fishing, that’s for sure. All we have to do is feed these poor gulls instead of taunting them with our fishy-smelling loot from the local chippie.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The problem may be that the seas around here have been too heavily fished and the fishing fleet isn’t what it used to be. Everyone’s had to look for other work–including the gulls.
LikeLike
You have an engaged community! I know Porter Girl, Chris White, Ellen Hawley…
Your picture and headline were awesome! Nice to meet you.
Thanks for coming to the Inspire Me Monday Linky party. I am Janice, one of your hostesses.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And thanks for hosting the linkies–and for dropping by. As for the community here–it’s what makes this worth doing. The comments keep me on my toes.
LikeLike
That was a very amusing account. The blackbirds with the laptops sent me over the edge.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for that. It ends my day on a high note.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mine too ;)
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m sitting in a cottage by the sea in Maine (US), listening to the gulls cry. I grew up near the water and love the sound of them, love to watch them fly, fish, land.
They don’t seem to be much of a problem here, even in the towns as far as I’ve heard. Which makes me think it is more the people who offer the food, or don’t clean up after themselves.
The world actually needs scavengers — they clean up after us!
LikeLiked by 1 person
They do–and we’re not very good at cleaning up after ourselves. But we do seem to have a love/hate relationship with them–not just gulls but all the scavengers we attract, who then proceed to act like, well, scavengers. Which offends us. Sigh.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I live inland. It’s always a thrill to me to see gulls. I’ve never experienced the downside.
LikeLiked by 1 person
In places they’re a real menace and in others they’re no problem at all. The going theory in the comment section is that it has to do with how much food-trash we leave lying around.
But they are beautiful birds.
LikeLiked by 1 person
More proof that Britons are probably nicer than Americans. The gulls around here wait until there are no people around to scavenge. (They may be afraid of becoming someone’s dinner.)
LikeLiked by 1 person