‘Sea’ gulls: Flying enemy or secret bio-superweapon?
By Alex Wiseman
April 2025
It might be common knowledge to you, but in the UK, you physically cannot be further than 70 miles from the sea, and with some species of gulls flying hundreds of miles in one day – you’re never really safe from these winged terrors. Even in Coton in the Elms, Derbyshire (1) there are these “coastal” cornerstones walking around as if they were in Southend-on-Sea, enjoying the sweet smell of maritime air, 2p pushers, and hard rock sticks.
Regardless of location, the commonly detested and near ubiquitously despised, and so-called “bird fascists” are present on our damp island. That avian sect that plagues the thoughts of caravan holidayers nationally – with their only warning sign being the acoustic assault on the senses of their highly recognisable calls.
Figure 1: A photo of a herring gull, staring down my friend's mum, who is the photographer here. It seems ready to strike the moment the windshield ceases to exist.
The terrifying stories told of stolen ice cream, cheesy toasties, and thick-cut chips lost to these aerial assassins are all too common around proverbial campfire of the British public’s hate fuelled hivemind (2).
The hivemind is wrong.
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I know not of your predisposition to seagulls, but the good news though is that, if you do hate them, it’s not your fault. You’ve fallen prey to one of Britain’s nastiest PR campaigns since the general public decided to hate wasps (3).
My name is Alex, and I’m British wildlife’s public representative (PR) for some of nature’s misunderstood animals. You might recognise my name, and my witty writing style, from such great hits as “Wasps and why they’re not the buzzkill you think they are.” (I’ve only written one blog ever, but if you couldn’t tell, this pattern is likely to repeat) and in continuing fashion through this ever so interesting and deeply scientific blog post (4), I will endeavour to convince you of the benefits to our avian friends – the gulls.
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I’m not sure if they’d call them seagulls in Coton in the Elms, or if they just call them gulls, rather than ‘landgulls’, because that would be silly. But I can say that any person referring to a singular gull as a ‘seagull’ is wrong, gulls are more cosmopolitan than feral pigeons (5) and it’s time we treat them as such.
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There is no such thing as a singular gull species. There is - however - about 6 regularly spotted species of gulls in the UK, including others that are often confused with gulls.
Figure 2: An informatively formal diagram of common gull species in the UK.
There are quite a number of different species, and although they may be hard to discern at first glance, the longer you look at them, some differences may begin to become apparent.
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From the red spots to the glaring eyes – lets dive into the great gull propaganda machine and unpack these unsung tide-line tax auditors of the water and finally learn how and why to sing their praises rather than chanting for their downfall.
It’s not uncommon to doom scroll your way into a video of a gull swooping for someone’s chips on a pleasure pier halfway down the Thames estuary, their crimes immortalised in shaky, wind deafened footage – but this hatred against gulls is akin to the British desire to queue – ubiquitous but utterly nonsensical.
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Seagulls are nature’s waste managers, scavengers of the maritime landfill (6) as it were. The devour carrion (7), chips, and other pests – without even bothering to wear the hi-vis jackets so they fit in with the surroundings (how kind of them). Without our coastal refuse workers, the vast majority of our coastline would be akin to Glastonbury campsite post festival and pre cleanup crew.
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“But Alex!” I hear you cry in the future, as I write this in the past.
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“A seagu-” – It’s just gull.
Figure 3: A tourist getting swooped on East Sands – this is quite literally from an article in The Scotsman – “Cafe sells £1 ‘seagull insurance’ as ‘terrifying’ birds steal sandwiches at stunning Scottish beach” I mean, with selling headlines like that, how are gulls meant to recover? You’re literally working against the media machine!
"Fine, a gull ate my chips once!” You retort!
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Be that as it may! I’m not arguing this is an isolated incident, and I’m sorry that your chips/ice cream/etc. was stolen! On behalf of gulls, I do sincerely apologise. However, lets strip this back to a primal gull’s perspective, if you’ll indulge me.
You are a feral, outdoors bird, with no way of understanding the idiosyncrasies of these humans around you, with merry seaside tourists walking around with edible lovely snacks held in front of them, presenting them to the air of the world. You are but a humble gull, trying to fill the gaps between meals – nothing is a guarantee in the wild west of the coast.
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So, you swoop, because if the humans aren’t using that food – you can! You don’t know humans don’t have a crop in their neck to store food for later digestion. And you make it! You get that Gregg’s sausage roll and you swallow it whole whilst flying off to safety, never to reconsider your actions. This is the first of many strikes – this adrenaline rush of free food satiates your primal urge to feed, and the free food these human things are handing our sounds like a great idea! And, when they throw it away or litter it round somewhere I can just eat the rest of it! What if I stuck around and carried on doing this for a chance at easy food! You, the gull, think.
You’re starting to see the issue here I assume?
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See, gulls (8) simply think you are hosting a buffet – dangling your food in the breeze you contribute unknowingly to our highly lax food and litter habits which have morphed gulls into the opportunists they are today. You wouldn’t leave your wallet in a pub and complain someone’s nicked it would you?
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This constant normalisation of al fresco dining (9) and improper waste storage has led to the conditioning of our avian friends acting in the improper fashion.
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Gulls are genetically hardwired scavengers, and humans are just hardwired to complain about it (British ones, atleast). Only one thing can change here – and it’s going to have to be us if you don’t fancy experimenting in animal testing.
So, how do we coexist in a peaceful fashion?
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I’m glad you asked! Well, firstly, don’t feed the gulls. Be that by accident or otherwise, feeding gulls teaches them to rely on tourists as a food source(10) . Continue the implementation of sealed bins by councils to prevent gulls from scavenging through our waste. And, if you’re compelled to do so – watch the way our gull friends behave in groups. Honestly, a gull colony can have more side plots than a Christmas special of EastEnders, and if you frequent the same places you start to learn their personalities.
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Gulls are natures way of asking, “why are you eating ice cream sub 10 degrees, or chips and cheese in gale force winds?”.
So, gulls are bio-superweapons, they’re engineered and honed by years of evolution and experience to clean our coasts and remind us of nature’s resilience to even the harshest of environments. They’re not fascists though, they’re bureaucrats, balancing ecosystems and keeping them in check, so next time you see a gull eye your Janetta’s (11) raspberry ripple and pistachio gelato in that 20p waffle cone, recognise two things – they’re resilient things, and more importantly, hide that Gelato!
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The chaotic-neutral antiheroes of the maritime pantomime, here to remind us that the wild thrives on mess and noise and the occasional act of snack piracy fuelled by genetic conditioning. Next time a gull eyes your gelato, I ask you to at least remember, in a world fuelled by data driven doomscrolling, remember that gulls are honest thieves.
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Gulls steal your food, politicians “borrow” public funds, media companies “harvest” your data, and I “borrow” the universities facilities, pens, and plenty more.
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At least gulls show a bit of decency and have the brass neck to openly steal your lunch, but not your data or your taxes, no T&Cs or offshore accounting. If you can excuse politicians and the media, which you probably do on the daily, you can excuse gulls – or at least place them a bit lower on your priority list.
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Footnotes​
1. The furthest large settlement from the sea in the UK.
2. Ok fine enough of the flowery language.
3. If it’s wasps you hate, see my previous blog.
4. Not!
5. Another horribly misunderstood creature.
6. Coined by Herring Gulls in 1928 – I was there! (Not true, I wish it were).
7. Carcasses of animals.
8. Pun not intentional.
9. Not designed for British weather, that’s for sure.
10. That is, for them to provide food, unless seagulls have rapidly increased in size since I last visited East Sands.
11. A rather nice gelato shop.
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