We had an injured one outside my house last summer. Some local kids kicked it to death literally while I was on the phone to the RSPCA to find out if it could be helped. Kids suck.
Herring gulls are LC globally, but are now on the red list for the UK-specific bird conservation list (and amber for Ireland), due to the massive decline in population here. For black-backed gulls, it’s amber and green respectively, so they’re not as badly affected, but their UK population is still in decline. Whether a local population is worth protecting when a species is doing okay globally is a matter of some debate, of course, but I feel we would have lost something as a country if we didn’t have seagulls anymore, regardless of whether the rest of the planet has them or not.
We had an injured one outside my house last summer. Some local kids kicked it to death literally while I was on the phone to the RSPCA to find out if it could be helped. Kids suck.
Herring gulls are LC globally, but are now on the red list for the UK-specific bird conservation list (and amber for Ireland), due to the massive decline in population here. For black-backed gulls, it’s amber and green respectively, so they’re not as badly affected, but their UK population is still in decline. Whether a local population is worth protecting when a species is doing okay globally is a matter of some debate, of course, but I feel we would have lost something as a country if we didn’t have seagulls anymore, regardless of whether the rest of the planet has them or not.
Thanks for the info, TIL!
I do remember seeing herring gulls eating, then getting chased off by bigger black-backs.