Posts Tagged ‘David Cameron’

Killer Seagulls???

Sunday, July 26th, 2015

What’ll he do, nibble your bum?”, one of the immortal lines delivered by the Monty Python team in the hilarious “Killer Rabbit” sketch from the film, Month Python and the Holy Grail. Wallace and Gromit as I recall also had to overcome the curse of a fearsome “Were Rabbit”, so “Killer Seagulls”, is this just another take on an age old comedy theme? Definitely not, politicians throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland are actually making public statements to the media about these fiendish beasts who have clearly viewed Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film “The Birds” subsequently devising a fiendish plan to take over the world.

Killer Seagulls off Kilmore Quay Co. Wexford, Ireland.

Fianna Fail senator Denis O’Donovan called for a cull of urban gulls and no less a person than British Prime Minister David Cameron publicly recorded his concern in asking for a “big conversation” about seagulls following reported attacks on people by sea birds in Cornwall last week. Summer time, especially during the holiday period is called the “Silly Season”, for sanity’s sake I hope that the media are just pulling a fast one due to lack of a good story. However, just in case the British PM and the bould Irish senator are serious about their concerns, please consider the following.

Seagulls, planning an attack maybe?

The Herring Gull population has declined in Ireland by 90%, from 60,000 pairs to 6,000 pairs, over the last 10 years due to botulism derived from eating infected food from rubbish dumps and loss of breeding areas primarily caused by human activity (Bird Watch Ireland, 2015). To the former I would also add commercial over fishing at sea. Over forty years sea fishing I have witnessed and commented on the very obvious decline in herring gull numbers within the areas that I fish. That these birds are hungry and desperate is clear, evidenced by a herring gull which tried to remove a codling from my hook as I swung it into the boat off Wicklow, the year 2009. In 38 years boat fishing I had never experienced such an action.

Killer toddler's, a very effective sea gull deterrent.

I have though had sea gulls dive bomb me and peck my head which was quite an unnerving if not slightly funny experience as I remember. The year, about 1974 and let me tell you I deserved the attack as I was very close to their nest. In contrast though and to back up the decline in herring gulls cited by Bird Watch Ireland; In mid October 2009 I was gutting freshly caught herring on the slip at Greystones harbour, Co. Wicklow. Not a gull swooped down to feast on the pickings because they were marked absent, in my opinion an unprecedented occurrence and one that was noted. Have sea gulls evolved in recent years to become dangerous as a backlash against their human oppressors? You decide, in the meanwhile I feel safe in the company of a first class sea gull deterrent, my grandson. Good luck……………