If I didn’t hate seagulls before then I certainly do now.
It’s because of these flying garbage bins I have been forced to write the following sentence.
Douglas Ross is right, the SNP are wrong.
While I vehemently oppose the politics of the erstwhile Scottish Tory leader, he was spot on when he called for the Scottish Government to remove the legal protection of gulls so powers-that-be can stop them plaguing urban areas by all and any means, including culling.
And Jim Fairlie, the agriculture minister at Holyrood, was way off when he refused on the grounds that “killing them and giving licenses out willy-nilly is not the answer.”
Think a fair few folk might disagree with you on that one, Jim.
Certainly, I have had my fill of the feathered fiends. We are only at March and already the squawking, screeching and messing from dawn to dusk has stepped up a gear.
I get It all evening long around Begbie Towers in Stonehaven and all day long at the office in the heart of Aberdeen.
And once the chicks arrive the noise and mess is joined by the swooping, divebombing and even direct attacks on people as parent gulls become alpha predators.
The Tories were right – gulls cull should not be so difficult
The case Mr Ross cited of an elderly constituent who fell and broke a leg when she was attacked by a gull is far from an isolated incident.
There are countless stories of people, including children, being hurt in gull strikes.
Even when they are not involved in hit-and-run attacks, the blighters mug innocents for their sandwiches or ice creams.
Heaven forfend you try to picnic in some parts and al fresco eating and drinking runs the risk of a gull pooping in your pint. I know, it happened to me.
But the gull menace has now got to a stage where it can put people off going to places overrun by the things – that includes urban centres crying out for people to visit, linger and spend and don’t need any barriers to that.
Farmer Jim’s reason for not letting Mr Ross go avian 007 with a licence to kill was down to the collapse of some gull populations by 48% in their natural habitat – but he concedes they are more common in urban areas.
Okay, so I’m no David Attenborough, but might they not be leaving their “natural habitat” because of the easier picking of burst bins and chucked chips in towns and cities?
But if said gulls are purged from urban spots by either tackling the nests and eggs or if that fails, culling, would they not return to spots where they can prosper in peace?
That may well be simplistic, but it’s surely better than shrugging and saying “live and let live”.
Gulls don’t belong in our cities and towns. It is time to reclaim our spaces for people, not pestilent pests.
Scott Begbie is a journalist and editor, as well as PR and comms manager for Aberdeen Inspired.
Conversation