The debate on gulls continues to roll on and on, so
perhaps I can shed some new light on the gull question based on several years
personal experience - dealing with gulls in some form or another. First of all
we have to realise that Gulls have been around long before us, they are
intelligent fast learners, and they live a long time.
They
are primarily Predators but are so adaptable that they can forage anytime
anywhere and are learning new skills all the time. Watching gulls drumming the
ground to bring worms to the surface is now quite common whereas some years ago
this would have been a rare event. Something that struck me some time ago was
their instant attraction to anything white, and I wondered why the attraction was
so strong. All gulls are predominantly white themselves, presumably it's easier to see each other at great distances over the sea perhaps. When some find
a shoal of fish for instance others can see them and quickly join the feast. Their
attraction to white is even more marked in Town where they are continually
faced with white carrier bags, white polystyrene fast food containers, and
white fish and chip papers. Then there is the human bounty of white bread
providers, quite simply white means food !
Having
cared for quite a few young injured gulls over the years, and observed adults
and their offspring at length, I copied the adults feeding routine on the young
injured gulls before releasing them back to the wild. The adults
deliberately reduce the amount of food they give their young in order to wean
them and make them self sufficient predators. We have all seen the young gulls
walking behind the parents, head bowed and peeping constantly for food. The
parents have a crop full of food but they refuse to give in, except when needed
to keep their offspring alive. This strategy is for the good of the offspring
and their future survival, and forces them to the seashore to join flocks that
will hunt and scavenge shellfish, molluscs, eels, etc.
Misguided
townies who think the birds are starving because they are always on the
scrounge are doing the seagulls no favours by throwing them food. They are in
effect creating townie seagulls who are unlikely to head to the seashore when
they are being fed by benefactors. These gulls then become the long lived pests
that will resort to snatching sandwiches or chips from children or adults, and
end up being the scourge that empty litter bins and dive bomb you, making the newspaper headlines.
I
have made quite a few enemies over the years, by trying to educate people into
what not to do regarding feeding the gulls on the riverside. They are creating
gull colonies that would normally be fishing the seashore, they put the lives
of young ducklings at risk, because a feeding frenzy means that gulls will take
everything that floats in the vicinity.
They also deprive people trying to feed
the ducks and swans because they move
away when bombarded by marauding gulls. People innocently and naively carry a
white carrier bag to feed the ducks, in effect the carrier bag is a flag to the
gulls to come and get it!
Gulls
are intelligent and only need fed once or twice to remember you, so
remember feed them at your peril,
because you will never get peace to feed the ducks or swans in future.
For all the talk amongst the powers that be,
there are still no decent sized signs placed strategically around the Town
warning people NOT TO FEED THE GULLS.
The bins are still allowed to overflow
and give easy access to the gulls. Personally, we should start exercising a bit of control over our own species - before we start
killing another !
