{"id":142794,"date":"2025-08-13T16:15:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T16:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/142794\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T16:15:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T16:15:10","slug":"barmouth-gull-kicked-to-death-after-stealing-fish-from-plate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/142794\/","title":{"rendered":"Barmouth gull kicked to death after stealing fish from plate"},"content":{"rendered":"

A herring gull has died after it was kicked after stealing fish from someone’s plate, the RSPCA has said. <\/p>\n

The incident happened at Marine Parade in Barmouth, Gwynedd, outside a fish and chip shop on 4 August at about 13:00 BST. <\/p>\n

Julia Dalgleish, RSPCA animal rescue officer, said: “Gulls and their nests are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, it is illegal to do anything that causes suffering to gulls.”<\/p>\n

The organisation is looking for first-hand witnesses to get in touch.<\/p>\n

Ms Dalgleish said: “Sadly, many people have an unfavourable opinion of gulls – but these are intelligent animals who form strong social bonds with.”<\/p>\n

The RSPCA asked for help identifying someone of interest to the case, “he is about 5ft 10in (1.78m), has curly hair, is of medium build and was wearing a black jacket”.<\/p>\n

Gull populations are in decline, with several species on the UK red list of conservation concern.<\/p>\n

Some gulls are coming to live closer to people, adding human leftovers to their natural menu of fish, crabs, starfish and earthworms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The birds may be flocking to urban areas to find food<\/a> to feed their chicks during the breeding season, switching back to a natural diet once their youngsters have fledged.<\/p>\n

Alternatively, gulls may be relying on human leftovers for much of the year as the natural food supply dwindles.<\/p>\n

Gulls are in trouble in their natural spaces, and some species, such as herring gulls and lesser black-backed gulls, are seeking refuge in coastal cities.<\/p>\n

There is very little data on the number of urban gulls – but natural populations are regularly monitored, showing big declines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A herring gull has died after it was kicked after stealing fish from someone’s plate, the RSPCA has…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":142795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[159,67,132,68,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-142794","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115022353168918003","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}