Are Herring Gulls a threat to our bio-diversity? (1 Viewer)

[fugl]

What a ridiculous thread!

 

[Gullplague]

So what's the culling method to be .. machine guns and carpet bombs or vicars with shotguns with church wardens going on ahead and flushing them out?

Peter Rock is against a cull but has concluded that no other tried and tested methods work (netting, plastic owls, egg oiling, loudspeaks broadcasting distress calls, Alka-Seltzer, spikes...). Every Local Government health department advises these useless methods togethert with advice not to feed them.

In the US they simply shoot them with .44 shot delivered via a 12 guage shotgun. We could do likewise here when the gulls go to "roost" (hang out in large numbers on commercial rooftop). If you removed the protection order you would have a large number of people buyikng air rifles to clear their rooftops but that will obviously cause problems as not everyone is a marksman.

IMHO, these birds are the most resilient of any creature known to ornithology and there really is no way of reducing their numbers without collateral damage. On a case-by-case basis it is relatively easy if you are a good marksman or can deliver a dose of toxic drugs to the target bird without another species beating the gull to the offering.

Here is an example of mass culling Finnish style:

http://www.rktl.fi/en/julkaisut/j/473.html

US style:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ocal-infestation-seagulls--SHOOTING-them.html

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Seagulls-being-harassed-killed-in-Olympia-168091026.html

The Welsh are using crossbows but find that the bolts simply penetrate the bird who then ignores it (HGs are virtually indestructible):

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ying-despite-having-crossbow-lodged-side.html

Even a bolt through the head is ignored by the HG:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...SURVIVES-despite-having-dart-lodged-head.html

This HG was heavily charred after being hit full on with a WW2 flamethrower but flew off moments later looking like a blackbird:

http://www.usmarinecorps.gullattack/breakingnews/1334555.com

 

[Gullplague]

Yes you're right Dan.

Having a useful debate with someone who wants to demonstrate whatever their motive, a single minded argument rather than listen to reason, is unlikely IMO to acheive very much either.

What reason? I have not had one counter-argument yet.

THe starting point is Seabird 2000 and the question that arises: should DEFRA/RSPB continue to rely on this report and inform hundreds of local government health departments and members of the public that the HG is in decline? Should all the evidence from overseas pointing to a bio-diversity problem be ignored?

Motive: force DEFRA to update Seabird 2000. Then they will know that the HG population has exploded forcing them to take action for the sake of public health, other species and the future of the Realm...!

Even our learned friend from the IOM was probably shocked to find that Seabird 2000 found that the HG population was increasing over the period of their survey when he assumed numbers were either the same or less.

This will soon be before the Backbench Committee of the HOuse of Commons through the MP for Cheltenham who is picking up where his predecessor left off in 2010. IN the intervenikng couple of years the problme has grown much worse in thatg town and it seems that it is now a national problem,

Why is there so much denial? Why no counts to refute the reports from all around the country that are seeing massive increases in HG numbers?

Bottom line: there is a problem and DEFRA are sitting on it like other goverment departments whose only master is the EU.

Why is it such a big problem? Because all known methods of restricting their expansion have failed:

http://www.birminghammail.net/your-...l-scheme-in-jewellery-quarter-97319-29451011/

Birmingham City Council plan to give seagulls fake eggs doomed to fail, warns expert../

But environmental health officer Mark Croxford admitted controlling the city’s rising herring gull population was too tall an order for the council’s pest control team. :eek!:


​

 

[Gullplague]

Whether it's a wind-up or not, it's still relevant.

People do have strong feelings/prejudices against certain aspects of nature (well anything actually) - it's probably better to be aware of a ground swell of popular opinion (whether there is any scientific justification or not) in the early days of discontentment. Certainly, Herring Gulls are not popular in certain quarters, much like Badgers or raptors in others.

Ignoring the fact that some people don't like certain aspects of the world around them is dangerous imo.

AT LAST--the voice of reason.

Just what I was looking for. Well done.

 

[Gullplague]

What a ridiculous thread!

Strange you should take this view as the US is the most advanced and pro-active nation on the planet in actually addressing the problems associated with the HG (and similar).

Did you know that they have arrived in Detroit?

http://womc.cbslocal.com/2012/06/19/seagulls-invade-southgate/
You wouldn’t believe how many of these things are hanging out on the roof and in the lot! Needless to say, the building and lot are a mess, as the birds have been…ummm…marking their territory, creating a possible health hazard.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/...illed-in-Olympia-168091026.html?c=y&tab=video

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ocal-infestation-seagulls--SHOOTING-them.html

 

[DMW]

Gullplague, would you answer my question? Are you a creationist? Feel free to reply in any font size.

 

[Gullplague]

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/9971...righton_and_Hove_City_Council/?action=success

Not a lot of support from other Brighton residents for your point of view.

Also , regarding baby HG's being safe from Crows, you seemed pretty certain HG's had no predators a few posts back.

I'm reluctant to post on this as I'm still half inclined to think its a hoax.

They don't--they are very intelligent and utilise nets to their benefit in protecting their chicks until they are big enough to fend off crows. I have no doubt a few crows manage to lift a gull chick. We have a tree full of crows near my house and very occasionally they send a raiding party toward one of the many roofs that have gulls nestng and I have yet to see a successful raid.

This is no hoax but an attempt to measure the response of bird enthusiasts to various articles on HGs that may have slipped by unnoticed. I was hopoing there might have been some enthusiast with influence who would join with my small group who are lobbying DEFRA to commission an updated report and wake up to the fact that Seabird is horribly dated and is still being used to misleasd the public as to the current state of the HG populations.

And you are right about Brighton residents--it is a very eclectic town with tree huggers and gull lover sin abundance. The Green Party run the council and are now infamous for silencing one of their own because she decided homosexual marriage should no be allowed. Lets not go there.

 

[Gullplague]

Gullplague, would you answer my question? Are you a creationist? Feel free to reply in any font size.

I don't know if you are familiar with Stephen Hawking, the famous physicist who is still alive despite an illness that should have taken him decades ago?

He and I and a few thousand others all believe in the Big Bang theory of Creation. Hawking has suggested that all matter at its simplist level is made up of positive or negative energy pulses. In the beginning there was a sort of explosion that sent these charges hurtling in all directions. The universe was without form and resembled a sort of "mist." Then along came one of the most complex mathematical formulas known to man that Isaac Newton described as gravity. Gravity gave form to everything we know, it shaped the Cosmos and defined the planets, their orbits and their characteristics.

We do not know when the Big Bang occured and Hawking suggest that it was sudden and of such enormous energy that the positive and negative pulses could easily have spread in a very short space of time.

That is how the universe was created. How wil be it be "uncreated" as all energy winds down according to the laws of physics (entropic degradation). Hawking suggests, and I think he is right, that the positive and negative pulses dissappear at the entrances to the very many "black holes" that occur throughout the universe. The matter is sucked into the holes and we do not know where the energy goes. Hawking also believes, and again I think he is right, that all of the universe will one day dissappear as quickly as it was created with the positive cancelling out the negative at the threshold of a massive black hole.

The problem that we have is what gave the creative agency of the universe the code to "write" the formula for gravity as it is too precise and too complex for a random set sequencing result. The Hadron Collider in Switzerland is attempting to find the Higgs Boson's particle that some have dubbed the " God Particle" because it is the agent that gave the Universe form after the Big bang.

That take us to life. What formula created the first life? Obviously gravity did as matter could not come together to form life without it. Life could not have derived from random sets because mathematics does not allow for random patterns to form formulas without intervention of a higher mathematical set. The law of physics that applies here is, simply put, complexity demands an object of higher complexity to give the lower form it's existence. Thus, a bridge demands the existence of a bridge builder.

DNA is, at its basest form, a mathematical formula akin to gravity but with a different outcome. The study of genes and the sequencing that occurs in the formation of life is based on a "binary system" to give life its form. There is a switch that turns off or on (binary) to give differentiation. This is why the closest relative to man, chromosome-wise, is a rat and not a chimpanzee. The reason why a chimp is a chimp and a rat is a rat is based on mathematics--or how growth was determiend by the binary code written into DNA. On this count, Darwin was wrong because he believed differention was environmentally caused. Darwin did not know about DNA and he was not a physicists and would not have understood binary sequencing.

When the binary code in DNA goes wrong or the sequencing loses it timing, you get mutation. Cancer, a common form of mutation, results when the switch remains on for too long and cells grow in unplanned patterns.

The reasonthe cell was possible was because the binary formula allowed for the simulatanoues development of the epidermins and mitochondria. YOu cannot have the basic building block of life without both being in place. It is all down to the DNA, the mathematacical formula that writes the code in DNA and its "parent" gravity.

Bottom line: I think Hawking has almost cracked it. The Universe began with a big bang and was followed by a complex mathematical formula that gave form to all that we see. The universe is conditional as matter is conditional being a delicate balance of postive and negative charges. The only question that is left unanswered may never be discovered as it is what lies behind big bang and how did gravity come to be written. The Greek philosphers suggested it was the "First Cause" and that infinite regression was illogical. However, this ducks the question as First Cause must be defined and linked to what it caused and how the "what" is related to the cause. This is where you get into the mystical where physics and religion merge.

So do I believe in Creationism? Of course--the universe is here and it was created or it does not exist. Hawking is right on the big bang IMHO and we started form nothing (or that which exists when positive cancels out negative) and will revert to nothing in due course as matter is conditional upon gravity and gravity must, if the laws ofphysics apply, wind down into chaos and it is at that point big bang will reverse, perhaps as quickly as it began.

Hope that answers the question.

 

[Phil Andrews]

And you are right about Brighton residents--it is a very eclectic town with tree huggers and gull lover sin abundance.

Clive / Gullplague - I am not sure I follow your point here; are you saying its a sin to like / tolerate / be ambivalent to gulls?

 

[DMW]

Thank you. It seems you know as little about physics and genetics as you do about gulls.

The reason I asked whether you are a creationist is because your debating style is more or less identical to that deployed by creationists (and climate change deniers)when presented with facts and empirical evidence: ignore, twist, cherry pick, treat opinion as fact where it suits, and fixate on material published by one or two self-styled experts (who generally have no first-hand knowledge of the subject at hand), while ignoring the overwhelming majority of real experts (professional scientists working in the field in question).

 

[Allen S. Moore]

Clive / Gullplague - I am not sure I follow your point here; are you saying its a sin to like / tolerate / be ambivalent to gulls?

I wonder if the problem is not just gull lover sin but the abundance of it in Brighton?

That reminds me about my visit to Brighton in 2010. No, I didn't indulge, please! Although it was the spring (Royal Wedding Day, actually) the gulls behaved well enough. There was a party of them swimming in the pool at a memorial, and not one of them came out to attack me.

 

[Nightranger]

gull lover sin abundance.

Sounds like a Manic Street Preachers song that didn't quite make the album.

 

[Nightranger]

What reason? I have not had one counter-argument yet.

A complete lie!

Ignoring the posts does not mean you have not had a counter-argument to read. It is significant that you have failed to answer certain posts, especially where you lied about the data in the JNCC document. Whoops, I am calling out an ex-lawyer as a liar, I had better go check my mail box for the next few days for the writ served against me. On the other hand, this is the response from me he has been waiting for and a chance to take umbrage and start crying that I am picking on poor ickle debater, GP who is just here for a bit of friendly chat.

 

[Nightranger]

Why is there so much denial? Why no counts to refute the reports from all around the country that are seeing massive increases in HG numbers?

Why bother with the question? All the explanations and counter-arguments we have given you remain undiscussed.

Fact: herring gulls remain in decline on a national basis and the slight increase in urban breeding numbers does NOT offset this decline. Your own links have condemmed you because the data is clearly saying something different to what you claim. Believe me, if I ever get wind of anything like this going through parliament, especially on this kind of evidence - the Facebook/BF/Twitter campaign will even put Benyon and the buzzards in the shade. Enjoy!

 

[Wildmoreway]

Back in my very early childhood I had a very unpleasant ride in a black taxi cab, this left me traumatised and afraid of black cars for many years afterwards. I wonder whether The Revenrend Plague suffered some herring gull related trauma in his early life?

 

[Allen S. Moore]

Back in my very early childhood I had a very unpleasant ride in a black taxi cab, this left me traumatised and afraid of black cars for many years afterwards. I wonder whether The Revenrend Plague suffered some herring gull related trauma in his early life?

Plopped in his ice cream cone, perhaps? That would have gone done as a vast increase in the incidence of such events and, therefore, population.

 

[Wildmoreway]

I was actually "plopped" on by one during the summer, apart from a deep personal grievance against the individual herring gull that was responsible I do not bear any ill will towards the herring gull population in general. :-O

 

[David FG]

They don't--they are very intelligent and utilise nets to their benefit in protecting their chicks until they are big enough to fend off crows. I have no doubt a few crows manage to lift a gull chick. We have a tree full of crows near my house and very occasionally they send a raiding party toward one of the many roofs that have gulls nestng and I have yet to see a successful raid.

Really? Odd.

 

[Allen S. Moore]

I was actually "plopped" on by one during the summer, apart from a deep personal grievance against the individual herring gull that was responsible I do not bear any ill will towards the herring gull population in general. :-O

Yes, many years ago I walked too close to a herring gull nest in the colony near here that the Reverend gentleman wrote had increased by 35% when his link stated a 35% decrease. A parent gull dropped on me what it must have been saving up for a week. I gave up my count of cliff nesting birds and went home, putting all my clothes in the washing machine and me in the bath. As, perhaps, some say, s*** happens, but I don't hold it against the species!

 

[Wildmoreway]

I was having my packed lunch at Meadfoot this afternoon and not one of the twenty of so Herring Gulls near by took the least interest in me.