Seagull Poisoned Following Spate Of Attacks

Seagulls are still protected, despite a series of recent horrific attacks (Rex)

Angry birds are causing a storm but there’s no need to attack seagulls – even though they injure people and pets.

That’s the message from the police and RSPCA, after one seagull was poisoned in Bridport, Dorset.

It was left dumped outside a police station, along with its chick, in what seems like a backlash against the aggressive birds, which have hit the headlines recently.

Scott McGregor, from the Bridport police service, said: “Whether you love them or loathe them, one of our seagulls is suffering following a suspected poisoning.

“The seagull had vomited considerably and when the RSPCA were sent out, it was their view that the bird was poisoned.

‘Seagulls are protected for a reason and there is no need to poison them, causing them unnecessary cruelty and suffering.”

And in Tenerife, a British holiday worker claims to have fed ketamine to a seagull.

Josh Greenwood, from Huddersfield, has received death threats, after posting a video of him apparently giving a chip, coated in the hallucinogenic white powder, to a gull. His friend has since said it was only salt and the stunt was “a joke”.

A spate of violence in recent weeks has included a beloved pet dog being killed in his own garden, a tortoise who was pecked to death, and a concert pianist who sprained her finger after a vicious seagull attack.

Frightened residents have contacted their councils and MPs are urged to call for a change in the law, so that they may control seagulls, which they see as a threat to their safety.

But licenses to protect the birds exist, meaning that once they have made a nest – which includes even laying down a few sticks – they cannot legally be tackled.

It is an offence to disturb or damage them or their eggs or nests, and permission is only granted by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), where there is a serious public health risk.

However, residents in Devizes, Wiltshire, won the right to smash more than 600 eggs on rooftops, after their petition generated Defra permission to call in the pest controllers on plagues of giant noisy defecating gulls.

Prime minister David Cameron scrapped a plan to research into aggressive gulls, just after the general election, deeming it “low priority”.

But last week he called for further investigation into “whether there is a need for a cull, what should be done about eggs and nests and the rest of it”.