Urban gulls. Why current control methods always fail

Abstract

Urban gull populations in Britain and Ireland have grown exponentially since 1969 to something in excess of 100,000 pairs today and could reach 500,000 pairs within ten years. Pest control has singularly failed to address the issue and will continue to fail until underpinning science reveals why urban gulls are so successful. All deterrence methods so far employed (and described) are largely based on guesswork and may have introduced further complications into the issue. In Italy numbers of urban gulls and their attendant problems will certainly grow (possibly exponentially) in the next ten years.

Keywords

• Urban avifauna
• Laridae
• British Isles
• pest control
• deterrence methods.