Bird experts hope to lure pesky seagulls away from city centre chippies using cat food. Ornithologists want to stop the flying menaces from terrorising customers in Carlise, Cumbria, by coaxing them back to designated nature reserves. Dr Roy Armstrong, who is heading up the operation, said gulls had moved into coastal conurbations as they had found 'easy pickings' to feed their young.
And in Carlisle, they are known to be aggressive during nesting season, reportedly 'dive-bombing' residents and leaving areas covered in faeces. But Roy's team will try to lure gulls back to their traditional breeding grounds along the nearby beauty spot of the Solway Estuary, using predator-proof fencing and pet food. He said of the cat food: "It's to increase chick productivity.
If we can deliver extra energy to the chicks, that has a knock-on effect five weeks later when they fledge. One of the biggest attractants for gulls to nest in a certain area is to have successful nesting gulls already there. "So we have things like decoys and sound lures, predator-proof fencing, supplementary food for the adults and supplementary food for the chicks to form a nucleus of the colony.
And then if we can make the colony really successful, that will then attract in not just first-time breeders but failed breeders from the likes of urban colonies." Roy believes a crackdown on landowners controlling nests and eggs allowed the birds, which are in decline, to flourish in coastal towns. And the gulls, which can.
