We will fight on the beaches: Britain’s war with rogue killer seagulls

A visit to a traditional British seaside town is usually a fairly safe and relaxing, if uneventful way, to spend the summer.

But, in recent weeks a threat to that tranquililty has emerged. Not the weather. Not even soggy fish and chips. Something altogether more menacing: rogue seagulls.

This month, the British media has been filled with accounts of increasingly violent behavior from gangs of gulls. The Daily Telegraph warned of "killer seagulls," "more interested in blood than bacon sarnies [sandwiches]." The Daily Mail reported that "packs of birds" had begun to "target women" to get food. London's Metro had an even greater threat on its mind: Seagulls could "start killing babies if we’re not careful."

And naturally there is also a backlash from pro-gull commentators. The Guardian's Patrick Barkham made the factually accurate point that "seagulls are not terrorists," for all their faults. "This war [on gulls] is a bad idea," he cautioned. Prime Minister David Cameron has even called for a Big Conversation, or national debate, on how best to combat the threat.

Then there are the victims. The first high profile case involved the death of Stig the Tortoise, a beloved family pet pecked to death by a tag-team of gulls in the sleepy town of Liskeard in Cornwall. According to owner Jan Byrne, Stig was powerless once the merciless birds had flipped him onto his back. Stig took two days to die friom beak related injuries.

Other known casualties include a Yorkshire terrier in Newquay named Roo, and a Chihuahua puppy killed in Honiton, Devon. Cornish pensioner Sue Atkinson needed hospital treatment after gulls drew blood from her scalp, and a man named Richard in Truro suffered a black eye when gulls took an interest in his breakfast. "You don't expect to be attacked by a seagull at any time," he told The Mirror, "but especially not that early in the morning." Richard declined to give his full name to the papers, no doubt fearing reprisals from the avian community.

There are genuine scientific reasons why some species of seagulls may be coming into more conflict with people. The summer is their breeding season. According to naturalist Stephen Moss, over-fishing by humans in coastal waters has also forced the endangered herring gull to move inland to seek atlternative sources of food. They have found that food in the landfills and garbage cans of modern British society.

In effect, sea gulls and humans stopped competing for food at sea, and have begun to do the same on land. And it is our own similiarity to the birds which causes conflict, Moss says. "Gulls are very intelligent — they are among the most intelligent creatures on Earth," he explains. "The birds act as we do, changing their behavior with the environment, adapting to new circumstances, just as we we have over millenia. We don't like it."