A growing number of “aggressive” seagull attacks have left Scottish nationals afraid for their lives, with a real risk of “someone being killed”, officials have warned. Politicians have called for a Scotland-wide summit on the “extremely important” issue, which left one young girl “with gashes to her scalp and blood running down her face” after an attack last year. Tory MSP Rachael Hamilton said such incidents were becoming an increasingly common and dangerous occurrence in her constituency of Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire in southern Scotland – and criticised the SNP Government for doing “absolutely nothing” to quell the fears of residents.
Agriculture minister Jim Fairlie has already committed to holding a northern Scotland seagull summit linked to issues in the region, but Ms Hamilton insisted that the problem was having a country-wide impact. She said one business owner in the Eyemouth area had summarised the local attitude towards the gulls as “being scared, attacked and traumatised”.
“Aggressive seagull behaviour continues to cause a real concern amongst businesses, amongst tourists, amongst everybody that has anything to do along the harbour,” she added.
Her fellow MSP and former Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross echoed the concerns and criticised NatureScot, the Government’s advisory body on wildlife management, of having a conflict of interest in its dual responsibilities to conserve and control the country’s bird population.
He also hit out at members of Scottish Parliament who had “smirked” upon hearing the discussions around dangerous seagulls, relaying the experiences of his constituents, who were afraid of being “divebombed” when they left their homes and suffered mental health issues and sleeplessness because of the noisy and hostile seabirds.
“The behaviour of the SNP’s quango NatureScot confirms they have lost the plot,” Mr Ross said. “They have told people to protect themselves with umbrellas and even suggested dogs as a deterrent.
“There is a clear conflict of interest in the fact they are responsible for considering licences to control gulls but are also responsible for protecting bird numbers.”
The MSP for Moray urged the Government to “finally act before we see someone being killed due to being attacked by a gull”.
Mr Fairlie responded by acknowleding that the issue of seagull attacks was “deadly serious” but suggested the spate of attacks was primarily linked to people feeding the birds.
“We are creating habitat, and we are creating feeding stations which are allowing gulls to inhabit our space, and that is now quite clearly coming into conflict,” he said.
“We have got to try and limit food waste and public littering. We have got to take away these feeding opportunities.”