Seagulls: Just Say No
Discussion
I've been tasked with preventing Seagulls from nesting on a south facing, flat roof in a coastal town where they seem to live long and prosper whilst being rather aggressive.
Previous efforts have included plastic spikes around the roof edge - which they simply filled up with debris and built a nest on! - and rotating CD mobiles - which they ignored.
Last year they were outside the window and went utterly ballistic as soon as you entered the room.
The customer has had enough and just wants a peaceful life.
Gulls apparently have an issue with the colour red, which may be worth exploring and static holographic tape or anything that causes uneven or unusual lighting (except CD's obviously).
They haven't returned yet this year so time is of the essence.
Any experience or practical suggestions would be most welcome.
Previous efforts have included plastic spikes around the roof edge - which they simply filled up with debris and built a nest on! - and rotating CD mobiles - which they ignored.
Last year they were outside the window and went utterly ballistic as soon as you entered the room.
The customer has had enough and just wants a peaceful life.
Gulls apparently have an issue with the colour red, which may be worth exploring and static holographic tape or anything that causes uneven or unusual lighting (except CD's obviously).
They haven't returned yet this year so time is of the essence.
Any experience or practical suggestions would be most welcome.
Get a high res, evil looking cat image, print it off at a really large size, stick it to the end of a pole and sneak up on them with it.
Or a DIY flamethrower-type affair - not suggesting you do any roof top baking, but the squirt of flame might be enough to make them realise it's a bad spot for a nest.
Or a DIY flamethrower-type affair - not suggesting you do any roof top baking, but the squirt of flame might be enough to make them realise it's a bad spot for a nest.
Seagulls being protected absolutely baffles me. There are millions of the bloody things. Apparently their urban population in the UK doubled between 2000 and 2016. They should be treated as vermin, and I'm someone who is generally opposed to killing animals just because they cause inconvenience.
When I owned my business, it was in a large unit on an industrial estate, and the place was absolutely covered in them during the nesting season. Absolutely thousands of them. You could see them across all the rooftops right across the estate.
We hired a licensed pest control bloke to come and clear the roofs of nests, and he also flew a bird of prey around which scared them off. It's a process which takes a couple of years to do properly, but it does keep them away for long periods.
As soon as the gulls arrive for nesting season, he went up on the roofs each week and threw all the beginnings of nests off the roof. The gulls would frantically try to build more nests, he would go back up and throw them all down again, and this went on for a few weeks until the gulls got desperate and just went somewhere else to build the nests.
Gulls can live for around 20 years, which is why they keep coming back to the same places in greater numbers. But if you can chase them away repeatedly for a couple of years, they stop coming.
When I owned my business, it was in a large unit on an industrial estate, and the place was absolutely covered in them during the nesting season. Absolutely thousands of them. You could see them across all the rooftops right across the estate.
We hired a licensed pest control bloke to come and clear the roofs of nests, and he also flew a bird of prey around which scared them off. It's a process which takes a couple of years to do properly, but it does keep them away for long periods.
As soon as the gulls arrive for nesting season, he went up on the roofs each week and threw all the beginnings of nests off the roof. The gulls would frantically try to build more nests, he would go back up and throw them all down again, and this went on for a few weeks until the gulls got desperate and just went somewhere else to build the nests.
Gulls can live for around 20 years, which is why they keep coming back to the same places in greater numbers. But if you can chase them away repeatedly for a couple of years, they stop coming.
Blackpuddin said:
Clown near where I used to live put bread out for them every morning. The bloody things were crapping all over any washing that was out on the line.
The damage they used to do around my work was terrible.For starters they blocked all the gutters and downspouts on the buildings with their nests and other debris. It caused caused overflowing gutters, roof leaks, and associated damage from the water ingress.
Their crap would destroy paintwork on cars and damage the signage and aesthetic cladding on buildings.
Seagull crap contains high levels of Uric acid which easily damages paintwork, coatings, tiles and can even corrode/eat into steel. Some days it would look like buckets of white paint had been thrown all over the front of buildings.
The only people who were happy were the industrial cleaners!
Cotty said:
Byker28i said:
Protected animals.
I don't know why, they are vermin and need to be culled. I read that early on when people were staying in because of covid the birds became more agressive towards humans as less people were going to the seaside so they had less food to steal.Boosted LS1 said:
The vermin are the people who leave all the food on the floor or throw it out to landfill. The gull's clean up behind them. Remove the waste and gulls would probably go back to living on cliffs.
They take food directly from people who are eating in public. They need to be culled.
Cotty said:
Boosted LS1 said:
The vermin are the people who leave all the food on the floor or throw it out to landfill. The gull's clean up behind them. Remove the waste and gulls would probably go back to living on cliffs.
They take food directly from people who are eating in public. They need to be culled.Cotty said:
Byker28i said:
Protected animals.
I don't know why, they are vermin and need to be culled. I read that early on when people were staying in because of covid the birds became more agressive towards humans as less people were going to the seaside so they had less food to steal.Cotty said:
Boosted LS1 said:
The vermin are the people who leave all the food on the floor or throw it out to landfill. The gull's clean up behind them. Remove the waste and gulls would probably go back to living on cliffs.
They take food directly from people who are eating in public. They need to be culled.Boosted LS1 said:
The vermin are the people who leave all the food on the floor or throw it out to landfill. The gull's clean up behind them. Remove the waste and gulls would probably go back to living on cliffs.
It's true that one of the main reasons gulls are in towns and urban areas is due to the food supply.I mentioned the industrial estate where my business was, and while driving round the roads during 'gull season' all you would see was the birds emptying bins and tearing open McDonalds and Gregs bags all over the place. They would be constantly in the bins and waste behind food production units.
If everyone made sure their waste was gull-proof and cut off as much of their food supply as possible, we wouldn't have such a problem.
I wouldn't say gulls 'clean up' though. The mess and damage left by their crap and nests is hard to believe at times.
Cotty said:
Boosted LS1 said:
The vermin are the people who leave all the food on the floor or throw it out to landfill. The gull's clean up behind them. Remove the waste and gulls would probably go back to living on cliffs.
They take food directly from people who are eating in public. They need to be culled.
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