Birds Behaving Badly: The Regulation of Seagulls and the Construction of Public Space

Abstract

This article is about the socio‐legal construction of one of the least‐loved birds in the United Kingdom: the ‘seagull'. In particular, it is about how the gull has been brought within the realm of the ‘anti‐social', in a context in which urban‐nesting gulls (of which there are many in the United Kingdom) are cast as causing a great deal of public nuisance, ranging from noise, aggression, and mess, to attacks, injuries, and stress. The article examines the measures adopted by local authorities to regulate the gull population – and to regulate people, in the name of regulating gulls – and shows how a construction of the ‘seagull’ underpins and justifies this regulatory framework. It argues that the story of the regulation of seagulls in the United Kingdom is also a story about the construction of public space, to the point that the measures adopted here challenge the very idea of public space.

Not in My Backyard: Public Perceptions of Wildlife and ‘Pest Control’ in and around UK Homes, and Local Authority ‘Pest Control’

“…The four species most frequently thought to possess none of the nine species traits (rabbits, squirrels, moles, and badgers) were those thought least likely to cause general problems and four of the five least often reported to have caused respondents personal problems. Given that gulls were seldom reported as causing personal problems and the relatively low rates with which traits were attributed to them, their general unpopularity seems counter-intuitive until you consider their portrayal in the media [60] and even in parliament [74]. The species associated with the worst attitudes (rats, wasps, gulls, pigeons, mice, and squirrels) were also those most often described using negative language.…”

“…Furthermore, because badgers and birds are protected in the UK, the available control options are limited and even if problems with these animals were equally intolerable as those with other species, they may be harder to do anything about. For example, although 44% of the UK population supports the idea of a gull cull [76], birds are protected, and so options for domestic gull control are limited, e.g., to physical deterrents (such as bird spikes or netting), chemical deterrents, or changing the behaviour of many people (such as not feeding gulls) [74]. In addition, problems with gulls may be ephemeral, e.g., defecating, dive-bombing people, and thus annoying but tolerable.…”

Animals and urban gentrification: Displacement and injustice in the trans-species city

“…Although many of these resorts have had a ‘run-down’ reputation, depicted as blighted by poorly maintained houses in multiple occupation (Smith, 2012), recent attempts at ‘grot-busting’ in coastal towns including Hastings, Margate and Bognor Regis have involved the displacement of seagull colonies (alongside building repair, streetscape maintenance and litter removal). Once regarded as an integral part of the seaside, discourses of noise, filth and aggression now surround seagulls, with Trotter (2019) suggesting that normative ideas of safe, gentrified consumption now exclude the presence of gulls: while they are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 , local authorities have removed eggs and nests, flown hawks to scare gulls away and strongly discouraged visitors from feeding birds. Further hostile architectures have emerged, with the spikes fitted to ledges and roofs a literal manifestation of what Flusty (1997) describes as the ‘prickly’ space that renders cities uncomfortable for ‘non-consumers’.…”

Seabirds in the city: Urban futures and fraught coexistence

“…While there are over 50 species of gull, with varied ecological niches, migratory patterns, and behaviours, they commonly appear as ‘seagulls’. In a review of the socio‐legal construction of the ‘seagull’ and the regulation of gulls by local authorities in the UK, Trotter (2019) traces how the gull has been cast as a messy, noisy, and violent intruder of public space. The gull's framing as an urban problem is exacerbated by media stories that have documented the rise of a so‐called ‘urban killer’.…”

“…Recognising the freighted history of such a commonplace phrase goes some way to appreciate just how entrenched the imaginative geographies of problem animals are and, by extension, just how difficult it is to shift them without giving them further credence. Whether moralising discourses or legal mechanisms of regulation, each pose questions for conceptions of public space as a site of multispecies encounter (Trotter, 2019).…”