{"id":18323,"date":"2025-06-27T06:10:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T06:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/18323\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T06:10:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T06:10:17","slug":"how-the-people-of-nairn-cope-with-hungry-urban-gulls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/18323\/","title":{"rendered":"How the people of Nairn cope with hungry urban gulls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eilidh Davies and Steven McKenzie<\/p>\n

BBC Scotland News<\/p>\n

\"GettyGetty Images<\/p>\n

Conservationists say Scotland’s gulls are in decline<\/p>\n

Like other Scottish seaside communities, Nairn is no stranger to gulls.<\/p>\n

But residents and businesses in the former fishing port on the Moray Firth coast believe they have become a serious problem.<\/p>\n

“I know they are part of living beside the sea, and I accept that, but they are quite a danger,” says Caroline Mackay, who has lived in Nairn for almost 50 years.<\/p>\n

She said her family had a nasty encounter with a gull in the town.<\/p>\n

\"Caroline<\/p>\n

Caroline Mackay, who has lived in Nairn for almost 50 years, believes gulls were not a problem in the past<\/p>\n

Ms Mackay said: “My youngest granddaughter came out of the local bakers with a cake.<\/p>\n

“But it wasn’t much of a treat because as she was coming out the door down came a sea gull and it landed on her head and scratched her.<\/p>\n

“All it was wanting was the food – it was quite vicious.”<\/p>\n

She added: “I don’t remember it being this bad. It feels like it has escalated.”<\/p>\n

A survey by Nairn Business Improvement District (Bid) last year received 85 reports of gull attacks.<\/p>\n

Manager Lucy Harding said: “That was quite worrying.<\/p>\n

“It is an issue I regularly get reports on, of people being attacked for food particularly.”<\/p>\n

\"Lucy<\/p>\n

Nairn Bid manager Lucy Harding said efforts were being made to discourage gulls from nesting in the town<\/p>\n

Ms Harding believes control measures taken over the past few years have made a difference, but she said the process involved was onerous and complicated.<\/p>\n

Gulls, like other birds, are protected by law and Scotland’s nature body, NatureScot, has strict rules around how they are controlled.<\/p>\n

A licence is needed for the removal of nests and eggs from the roofs of buildings in areas where gulls are deemed to be a nuisance.<\/p>\n

Gulls can also be a problem in Aberdeen – this one was filmed stealing crisps from a shop in 2016<\/p>\n

But Ms Harding said it was now harder to obtain the necessary paperwork.<\/p>\n

She said: “In 2023, we had lots of licences and we carried the work out as normal as we had done for five years.<\/p>\n

“But last year we were granted a licence far too late.”<\/p>\n

She said local MSPs Fergus Ewing and Douglas Ross helped Nairn Bid secure a licence in time this year.<\/p>\n

In a debate on the issue at Holyrood on Thursday, Ross warned that Scots risk losing their lives over the “growing problem” of “nuisance” gulls. <\/p>\n

And fellow Tory Rachael Hamilton said a nationwide summit must be held to tackle the issue as she warned that Scots were being lefts “scared, attacked and traumatised”.<\/p>\n

She said “aggressive” gulls had attacked seven children in one month last year in Eyemouth<\/a>, Scottish Borders, with one girl “left with gashes to her scalp and blood running down her face”.<\/p>\n

Nairn Bid has put in place other measures to discourage gulls from nesting in the town.<\/p>\n

They include reflective devices designed to scare birds away from rooftops.<\/p>\n

Ms Harding said: “I have been sent pictures of gulls sitting next to them, and even mating on top of them, but I think they are working.”<\/p>\n

Phil Stuart, who runs local shop Vitamin Sea, said he believed Nairn was not “plagued” by gulls like some other seaside communities were.<\/p>\n

“I think we are doing really well compared to elsewhere,” he said.<\/p>\n

“At the moment there are one or two individual birds causing trouble.”<\/p>\n

\"Phil<\/p>\n

Phil Stuart believes control measures have been effective<\/p>\n

Five species of gull breed in Scotland – great black-backed, lesser black-backed, herring, common, and black-headed – according to NatureScot.<\/p>\n

There are other species found in Scotland, but they are more rare.<\/p>\n

Gulls are a coastal species, but they have been drawn into towns and cities due to the plentiful places to build nests, a lack of predators – and lots of opportunities to find food.<\/p>\n

In their natural habitats – the coast and farmland – the birds eat carrion, seeds, fruits, young birds, eggs, small mammals, insects and fish.<\/p>\n

NatureScot issued 2,633 nest removal licences across Scotland in 2023, and 1,601 in 2024.<\/p>\n

It said it understood gulls could sometimes cause problems in towns and cities, but at the same time populations of the birds were facing “serious declines”.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson said: “Over the last five years we have supported many individuals, businesses and communities to better manage gulls without the need to kill the birds or destroy their nests. <\/p>\n

“As a result, the number of licence applications to destroy nests and eggs and kill chicks has reduced.”<\/p>\n

NatureScot said it would continue to issue licenses where gulls were causing a health and safety issue.<\/p>\n

The spokesperson added: “In the longer-term, we need to find ways to live with gulls and other wildlife.”<\/p>\n

\"GettyGetty Images<\/p>\n

RSPB Scotland said people and gulls could coexist if the right action was taken<\/p>\n

Numbers of herring gulls, a species people are most likely to encounter in urban areas, have fallen by 48% in Scotland since the 1980s, according to RSPB Scotland.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson said: “Gulls have adapted to live in our urban areas because they are struggling to find food and shelter in the wild. <\/p>\n

“Killing gulls is not the answer.”<\/p>\n

They added: “This is a charismatic species that has always been a part of our coastal communities, their cry is the sound of the seaside. <\/p>\n

“People and gulls can coexist so long as we take the right action.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eilidh Davies and Steven McKenzie BBC Scotland News Getty Images Conservationists say Scotland’s gulls are in decline Like…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[159,67,132,68,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-18323","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\/114753845944056129","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18323","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=18323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}