When seagulls attack... (From Daily Echo)

When seagulls attack...

6:50am Sunday 1st February 2009 in

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THEY are infamous for their raucous cries and screeching, but now it seems seagulls have also developed an aggressive streak.

Reports of seagull attacks are on the rise across the country and local pest controllers are increasingly being called out to deal with birds swooping on members of the public.

Sean Whelan from Southampton-based Whelan Pest Protection, said the gull hotspots were at WestQuay, Bargate and along Queen’s Way, one of the city’s busiest streets.

He said the gulls sought out roof space and areas where they could keep a watchful eye on passing pedestrians.

“The last call I received was about a really nasty gull attacking people along Queensway, near the shops,” said Mr Whelan.

“If a gull becomes agitated with you it will swoop down and if you are carrying food it will knock it right out of your hand.”

The pest controller said he’d received about 20 seagull-related call-outs in the past year and they were among the most aggressive pests he’d had to deal with.

“If I go to do a job to get rid of seagulls I go fully covered with a mask and helmet because I’ve had gulls perch their bums above me and let me tell you they have got an amazing trajectory,” he added.

Mr Whelan was recently called out to deal with a gull problem in Hamble, where the birds had roosted in the loft of a townhouse.

Claire Cook, director of property management firm The Rent Shop, said the gulls were so protective of their new home she was too afraid to open the loft hatch.

In other parts of Britain they have already made headlines with their attacks on humans, whose heads they slash, raking them with their claws at 40mph.

Last year, a woman suffered nasty injuries when she tried to escape an attacker in Weymouth and another was taken to hospital after being savaged in Burnham-on-Sea.

However, a spokeswoman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said incidents such as these were few and far between.

Gulls are at their noisiest and most aggressive during the nesting season in April and May because they need to collect more food.

The most common type of gull along the south coast is the herring gull. The numbers have increased significantly in recent times, with many of them moving further inland.

It is illegal to kill seagulls under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, so the key to getting rid of them is bird-proofing roosting spots.

This means making changes to the surfaces, such as bird netting and spikes, so they no longer want to roost there.

However, if gulls pose a particular threat to health or safety and there are no alternative options, culls can be carried out by shooting or poisoning in rare circumstances.

A Southampton City Council spokesman said it only offered advice to people suffering from gull-nuisance and that no culling had taken place in Southampton.