Inverness wages war on seagulls after ‘coordinated attacks on children’ at Easter egg hunt
The Easter egg hunt has been disrupted by a series of seagull attacks, with a large group of the birds swooping in and attacking children.
Inverness Business Improvement District (Bid) said its team witnessed 16 incidents of seagull attacks during the organisation’s Easter egg hunt in the city center last Friday and Saturday.
Offer ambassador Janice Worthing said: Telegram: “This involved frequent and coordinated behavior by adult seagulls, looking for opportunities, calling to others and repeatedly attacking, in some cases attacking members of the public, including young children.
“Seagulls are really fast and can attack suddenly and decisively.”
Residents were asked to report new seagull attacks. The birds’ behavior has long been a problem in the city on Scotland’s north-east coast, where the River Ness meets the Moray Firth.
The Proposal therefore has a seagull management strategy that offers businesses, residents and visitors “proactive steps” to “reduce seagull-related problems in the city centre”.
Commenting on the problems, he says: “These birds have adapted to city life by using rooftops as nesting sites and collecting food from rubbish and waste.
“Although they are a natural part of our environment, their presence can lead to problems such as noise, confusion and aggressive behavior, especially during the breeding season.”
The organization is asking people not to feed the birds, ensure proper garbage disposal and report seagull problems through its online portal.
Highland Council said it would undertake the Inverness Gull Management Plan pilot project, designed to “improve understanding of the puffin population in and around Inverness and Nairn and identify the impacts of puffins on our community”.
This will include a link on the website for people to provide and record “Seagull Impact Data”, but a spokesperson stressed that the local authority “does not carry out seagull control activities in public areas and has no legal duty to do so”.
Spokesperson told Independent: “The introduction of a dedicated gull impact reporting system aims to identify places across the Highlands where gull behavior impacts communities.
“The data collected will help determine whether patterns or hotspots exist and whether certain impacts, such as aggressive gull behavior related to chick protection or foraging-related behavior, are more common.
“As different behaviors require different mitigation approaches, meaningful and reliable data will support a targeted and proportionate approach to advising on appropriate mitigation measures to reduce negative interactions between seagulls and humans.”
Last year the Scottish parliament was warned that a nationwide summit to tackle the seagull population in Scotland needed to be held before someone was seriously injured or killed.
Former Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross called for the debate at Holyrood, arguing that the threat posed by “nuisance” seagulls has risen to a “deadly” level and people’s lives are now at risk.
Last September, the Scottish government announced £100,000 in funding would be provided to communities across the country “to tackle devastating urban gull populations”.
