Why we have called for a national gull summit

Last Friday, the Prime Minister David Cameron called for a big conversation around gulls following highly publicised tragic incidents involving the loss of pets to these birds.  Since then, there has been a huge amount of media attention on the relationship between gulls and humans.

As I wrote in an article in the Telegraph today (see here), I think the PM's right.  There should be a conversation too, but like any conversation around a highly-charged issue it should bring together everyone in the search for a solution, while recognising there will be no quick fixes – this is going to be a long haul.

Herring gull in close up by my colleague Grahame Madge rspb-images.com

The ultimate aim of any conversation and subsequent action should focus on defusing the tensions between gulls and people in communities across the UK. Gulls should be revered for being part of the seaside experience, rather than being demonised for being troublesome neighbours.

The numbers of gulls nesting on roofs in town and cities has been increasing since it was first recorded over 70 years ago. However, among the flurry of wings and constant calling, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that gull numbers in the UK are falling alarmingly. The herring gull – the familiar ‘seagull’ – is declining since the 1970s and even since the year 2000, the UK has lost almost one third of nesting herring gulls.

Yes numbers are rising in towns and cities (in places like Tynemouth where I shall be at the weekend), and even inland, but overall populations are crashing as their natural colonies on cliffs and rocky islands haemorrhage so quickly that they are in genuine need of conservation help.  Herring gulls feature on the Red List of the Birds of Conservation Concern in the UK.  As a nesting bird, the herring gull is confined to Europe, and within the European Union, the UK has the largest population (see here). The latest (June 2015) assessment of the status of birds in Europe and the European Union (see here) has listed the herring gull as “Vulnerable” on the IUCN’s EU red list, meaning there is a threat of extinction.

Whether we like it or not we have a special responsibility for the herring gull.

Listen to any radio phone in or scroll through any comments section on news articles and you will find many requests for a gull cull. Let’s think about that for a moment. With many pairs of herring gull in the UK nesting on someone’s roof, that’s a big and expensive programme that would result in the partial eradication of a threatened species, a measure which I would suggest would be unethical, unpalatable and probably illegal.

If this isn’t a good enough reason to think again, there is another reason: it also wouldn’t work.

Gulls are choosing to nest on our buildings for two principal reasons: access to high-rise real estate on which to rear their families above streets where these quick-witted scavengers can find an easy meal. Simply reducing their numbers in urban localities would create a vacuum, sucking more birds into problem areas to be controlled in the next culling program. This is insanity. You’d have to cull on a wide geographic scale year after year for the long term, which is both unsupportable and impractical.

As a society, we have to have to turn the conversation towards long-term evidence based measures which will help reduce conflict. Then we can genuinely start to tackle the problem in ways which don’t endanger a threatened species and which set us on a better path to improving society's relationship with one of our most iconic and charismatic birds.

To this end, yesterday I wrote to Defra and Natural England to propose a National Gull Summit, bringing together expertise from the wildlife sector, academics, local and national government to consider the issue and make proposals; to look not only at urban areas, but also how we can best look after our wider marine environment to support healthy seabird populations.

This latter area is hugely important. The underlying issue we must address is that our seas and the wildlife which depend on them are in deep trouble. Delivering measures such as a coherent network of Marine Protected Areas will be a vital part of finding the right solution.

There’s so much we need to learn about these birds, and this is a real opportunity to look at how we can live comfortably with our wild companions, and do the best for both birds and people.