Vicious flying rats

Mark 9 Comments

Worcester City Councillor Alan Amos (Conservative) is quoted in the Daily Telegraph as calling gulls ‘vicious flying rats’.

Apparently if people behaved like gulls do, then they would be arrested, but then, let us consider, shooting people for pooing on your car is illegal so shall we agree that gulls aren’t people, councillor?

Natural England may be asked to license control of these gulls – I’m sure Wild Justice will be interested in what they are doing.

The image used in the Telegraph wasn’t taken in Worcester I’m guessing – if it was then that cross-country flying Puffin was asking for trouble.

The story gets the law wrong and can’t quite name the species of gull concerned…

[registration_form]

9 Replies to “Vicious flying rats”

  1. I suppose a Tory would know a thing or two about vermin, since they themselves are the lowest form of it. You’d think they’d be more careful about calling for vermin culls, but here we are.

    Gulls are annoying, true, but if you are really that bothered about birds pooing on your car then buy a car cover from Aldi or Lidl, or, if you fancy paying twenty quid extra for the same product, Halfords. They cost peanuts and take literally seconds to put over the car.

    This is the English problem with conservation in a nutshell, the absolute bloody minded refusal to alter their behaviour in any way whatsoever, no matter how slight it would need be, to accommodate wildlife. The insistence that wildlife must slot into their own comfortable lives or be exterminated. Although, frankly, it is also how much of the English Middle Class think of the poor, or foreigners (which includes people from the other home nations), too. Serve, be invisible, or be destroyed.

  2. Lesser,

    Amos should concentrate more on the real heath risk, the amount of dog poo which litters the place. Perhaps these owners need oiling?

    1. Cat shit is a far worse problem than dog shit. At least dog owners are now mostly on board with cleaning up after their pets, and dog shit is fairly predictable in where it is found. Cat shit though, you can go out to do a pleasant five minutes of gardening in your own private garden, and find that someone else’s cat has shit all over the place. Cat owners are the WORST kind of people, and they will never admit it.

  3. My very first microbiology job was in Worcester. Our lab did a project analysing cloacal swabs from gulls on the local landfill site for human pathogens. We found they carried most food poisoning organisms including campylobacter. I guess much of the current problem with gulls is that they no longer have as much access to food waste so they’ve moved into the city instead.

    1. Yes, that may be true, but part of it all is the pathetic wetness of us Brits who allow ourselves to be intimidated by such ferocious creatures as randy peacocks, terrotorial pheasants and privateering herring gulls.

      Just wave your flippin’arms you dipsticks and the assailants will go away!

      Reminds me of a time in Cornwall when a herring gull made a crafty move for my meat and onion pie. Luckily I had my thumb on the pastry lid of the delicacy so the bandit was frustrated. It left a little smutty web mark on my pie. I nibbled round the pullulating crust, threw that away and finished my pie at my leisure.

      1. And we expect people in India and Africa to live with leopards, lions, tigers (and bears, oh my), hippos, rhinos, elephants, hyaena, etc, yet we cannot deal with a bird no larger than a small loaf of sandwich bread. No wonder that Britain is a global laughing stock.

    2. If you did the same with humans you’d probably find they carry the same micro-organisms too. Not that cloacal swabbing would be the way to establish that! I doubt it is cause and effect, humans have all kinds of filthy practices that cause problems. Often because of saving a few quid or simply sloth. What I object to is that some people leave waste strewn about and then complain when gulls pick it up. Sort out the bad people habits first!

Comments are closed.