The UK's love-hate relationship with seagulls

Conservation groups have spoken out in defence of seagulls after reports of "XL" gulls terrorising towns, bombarding beach-goers and even attacking cats.

Experts say that seagulls are "in serious trouble" and insist that humans are to blame for rising numbers of birds in towns and cities.

'Beachfront bandits'

"A great annual conflict is underway," said The Telegraph, as humans and seagulls "come face to face in a chip-based standoff". Now that summer is here, "giant swarms" of gulls have been accused of attacking sea-siders, traumatising children and are "even being blamed for postal delays".

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For many, these "large, intimidating birds", which have "occasionally been caught on camera eating whole squirrels and drowning pigeons", are "considered a menace".

No one is safe from the "beachfront bandits" that are "terrorising" Britain's seaside towns, said the Daily Mail. "Gangs of shrieking seagulls" are apparently "prowling the skies and dive-bombing onto helpless victims across the UK", like "a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock movie".

"Quivering locals" have relived "brutal run-ins with the flying fiends", said the Daily Star, as "ripped" seagulls are "terrorising towns". Describing them as "smarmy seagulls", the Daily Mail said they will "stop at nothing", so "step out at your own peril".

'Entrepreneurs not scroungers'

But scientists say that seagulls are being forced into our towns by the loss of natural spaces. The birds have been "excluded from their natural habitats by human activities", said the BBC, so they "have little choice but to move into urban areas to pick through our waste".

The balance between rural to urban has "flipped", said The Telegraph, as there are now 176,000 pairs of herring gulls and 269,000 pairs of lesser black-backed gulls in urban areas, compared with 61,000 and 55,000 respectively in "non-urban situations".

Those urban figures mean that many people think numbers are going up, whereas all Britain's breeding species are actually on the red or amber lists of the British Trust for Ornithology's Birds of Conservation Concern. The group said that the UK's gulls are "in serious trouble" and called for the first time for volunteers to count gulls during the autumn.

Seagulls are facing "multiple pressures", from "avian flu to depleted fish stocks" and we "need to learn to live alongside them", experts told the BBC. "When we see behaviours we think of as mischievous or criminal – almost", said Professor Paul Graham of the University of Sussex, we're actually "seeing a really clever bird implementing very intelligent behaviour".

So we could regard them as "entrepreneurs rather than scroungers, refugees rather than aliens", Tim Dee, author of "Landfill: Notes on Gull Watching and Trash Picking in the Anthropocene", told The Telegraph.

Viola Ross-Smith, from the British Trust for Ornithology, said she thinks seagulls are "actually fascinating and quite beautiful birds", even though she is "someone who has been attacked and pooed on by them".

Despite the scare stories, gulls aren't generally violent. "Not unless they’re defending their chicks", said The Guardian. And although "there are occasionally reports of minor injuries when they swoop to steal food", it's "definitely chips" they want, "not blood".