Seagulls – Our Feathered Friends or Flying Rats?

The gulls are back in town with a vengeance. June is nesting season for seagulls. That means the birds are very active finding food and protecting chicks from any perceived threat.

In the past gulls nested on rocks or cliff faces. Nowadays a flat roof or a gully is often preferred. The primary source of food is no longer the coast or the estuary. Pickings are much richer from humans who discard rubbish and who deliberately or inadvertently provide food.

Some people in Totnes enjoy seeing and hearing the gulls. For others they are a menace and a health hazard. Complaints about seagulls include the mess from their droppings; rubbish strewn across streets when gulls have torn open sacks; food snatched from tables and sometimes from people in the street; aggressive behaviour, diving and swooping on people and pets; persistent noise.

Like all wild birds, gulls and their eggs and nests are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Local authorities have no duty to control seagulls. South Hams District Council provides seagull proof sacks for rubbish, but some residents or businesses still put food waste in plastic sacks. The seagulls love it.
As a result Totnes is frequently covered in rubbish. Cars, buildings and people can be drenched in seagull droppings. Anyone eating outside risks having food snatched. Complaints to the council go unheeded. The impact of seagulls inevitably has an impact on visitors’ experience of Totnes.

So what can be done?

Councils in other parts of the country have responded to the problem. East Devon District Council has an informative section on its website, -content giving advice on how to alleviate the problem. In some circumstances East Devon will issue a fixed penalty notice to anyone deliberately feeding seagulls. North Yorkshire Council has gone a step further in helping residents deal with the problem by operating a gull incident reporting service and sharing the cost of seagull proofing buildings.

Is anything going to be done in Totnes?

South Hams District Council has no solution to offer other than its seagull proof sacks. One long suffering resident of Totnes has identified a seagull expert who is prepared to survey the problem and produce a seagull action plan. This needs to be funded. South Hams Councillor John Birch sees this as the responsibility of the Town Council.
Totnes Town Clerk Catherine Marlton said:
“We welcome all comments and ideas from the community that can help us to continue to ensure that Totnes is a great place to live and work.  When ideas, like the proposal to arrange a survey of seagulls, are put forward, our Town Councillors need to discuss and agree if action is appropriate.  They need to consider things like is this the responsibility of the Town Council or if another body has a duty to carry it out?  Councillors also need to identify if it meets the Council’s agreed strategic priorities and if there is sufficient budget to carry out the work. In this case, councillors will also need to evaluate if there is also sufficient budget to carry out any action that is recommended as a result of organising an initial survey of seagulls.  This democratic process helps to ensure that the public funds gathered by the Town Council through a share of the annual Council Tax are spent appropriately and with due consideration. All council decisions must follow a formal timeline to ensure fairness and transparency.  Councillors will discuss the suggestion to carry out a survey of seagulls at the next available meeting that covers issues of environment and public realm.  The optimum window identified by the expert for carrying out a survey of seagulls is April/May 2025.”

Whether you love or loathe seagulls, there can be no doubt that they have a negative impact on the appearance of the town and the wellbeing of many people in Totnes.

It’s a problem caused by human behaviour. If it’s to be tackled then human behaviour has to change.
There are things that can be done to improve the situation. Let’s hope that our councillors take the problem seriously and are prepared to provide some solutions.

Maybe that way we can all learn to love our feathered friends.