Killer Seagulls Invade Britain, Violent Seabirds Halt Mail Delivery To English Town
They’ve been known to steal sandwiches and French fries from the unwary and swoop down to make a mess of forgotten food wrappers, but the seagulls nesting along Britain’s coast have grown strangely violent.
In a scene out of the movie The Birds, a group of seagulls attacked a British mail carrier this week forcing her to abandon her route and leave some mail undelivered, the Royal Mail service told the Express.
“These swooping attacks made it difficult for the postwoman to continue to do her job.”
The next day, Britain’s mail service issued apology notes to the customers who didn’t get their mail saying their houses were “inaccessible due to dangerous conditions,” but one resident thought the whole things was a joke, according to the Express.
“I just found it extremely funny. I just can’t grasp how a postman or postwoman had been unable to deliver an item of mail due to seagulls. I thought somebody’s really, really got to having a joke here.”
This is the second summer that seagulls in the English county of Cumbria have grown violent and attacked humans. Last summer, aggressive seagulls killed three pets, mauled a retiree, and bit a young boy so badly he almost lost his finger. They’ve also attacked beachgoers and grabbed the faces of tourists who come near them with food.
The seabirds tend to stalk the city’s ice cream sellers and dive bomb customers when they leave the shops trying to steal their treats. They’ve also been known to grab pigeons in London by the neck and drown them before eating their bodies.
Seagulls in Britain became a protected species in the 1970s after their numbers declined by 75 percent, but their behavior has become so dangerous recently county officials have been considering drastic measures to contain them.
Killer Seagulls Terrorize Animals and People in UK’s Seaside Communities https://t.co/3K0WN6nn9M pic.twitter.com/DagS26DZSf
— Michael Scott (@MadMikeAmerica) June 25, 2016
One idea involves using drones to drive the seagulls from their nests, town councilor Graham Roberts told the Express.
“Anybody with any food near their face could have their nose or eye pecked. People don’t want to be in fear of being attacked by seagulls. It’s frightening. We’ve got to do something about it.”
The British government doesn’t consider nuisance alone to be reason enough to justify culling the seabirds; county officials regularly tell troubled residents to protect their faces from aggressive seagulls using umbrellas.
Keith Bretton, vice president of the Trust for British Ornithology, said the area’s seagulls have become used to living alongside humans and are no longer afraid of them and only become violent during the nesting season, according to the Telegraph.
“The temperament of gulls is usually pretty good. Except when they’re nesting. Like any parent, they’re very protective of their offspring once they’ve hatched and they see us as a threat.”
The seabirds have become such an issue UK Prime Minister David Cameron is preparing to order the British government to intervene.
Seagulls fight in teams and have been known to swarm in great numbers; if one bird is upset it will call out to other nearby birds for help.
Return of the killer seagulls. Attacking and flying off with a poor pigeon. Nobody is safe! ? pic.twitter.com/yz3Yffr7Ln
— Emma McMenamy (@emmamcm) July 6, 2016
This isn’t the first time the isle of Britain has been forced to deal with invasive species.
Britain has already been forced to deal with a plague of oversized rodents that have become immune to pesticides and poison used to kill them. The rodents of unusual size have bred to untold numbers during Britain’s unusually wet and warm winter and are now thought to outnumber humans on the island by three to one, according to the Express.
“Super-rats are those that have genetic variants that are far more tolerant to the most commonly used poisons.”
[Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images]
