UK town 'plagued by bloodthirsty seagulls' but £20k project to stop birds halted by animal rights group

A woman has even been left bloodied after an encounter with the seagulls.

A £20,000 project to cut down the number of the birds in Rhyl has been called off, after it was opposed by animal rights campaigners.

A divide has formed in the town between those who “really care about seagulls” and others who call them “flying rats”.

One Rhyl resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said there were too many gulls in Rhyl and neighbouring Kinmel Bay in Conwy.

“They are like flying rats. I saw one swoop down and take an ice cream from a child in a pram. When I lived in Kinmel Bay a woman was making her way to the local doctor’s surgery and her face was covered in blood. One of the seagulls had attacked her. She had a head injury,” he told WalesOnline.

He continued: “These creatures create quite a lot of hassle and I can’t understand how people can defend them. I’ve been told they won’t be reducing numbers in Rhyl because so many residents oppose it and the council take notice of that but they are not listening to people like me who don’t like the creatures. It’s about time something was done about them.”

This comes after Rhyl was named as the worst seaside resort in the UK by the Telegraph.

The newspaper ranked a range of “classic resorts” across the country, which saw the North Wales resort coming in last place.

The Telegraph said the town was an example of “how not to do things” and it awarded Rhyl a score of five out of 100.

Three years ago, the Rhyl Business Improvement District announced a scheme that would have tried to cull the birds.

It would have involved targeting before they reached the embryo stage, which would drastically reduce the number of seagulls born.

However, the Rhyl Business Improvement District stepped down from the scheme due to fierce backlash from animal rights activists.

Councillor Brian Jones, who sits on the board of the Rhyl Business Improvement District, said: “What you have to realise is there is a lobby of people who really care about seagulls, and they will get pretty upset if you start talking about [reducing the numbers], but there are two sides to the debate.

“There are people who love seagulls. Before Covid the Rhyl Business Improvement District carried out an exercise and came up with a project in which you could control the breeding of seagulls. There are probably somewhere in the region of 500 nesting sites in Rhyl and the immediate area and there was a legal solution, a liquid solution you can paint on eggs when they have only just been laid so you are not killing anything, as the embryo hasn’t formed, and you can control the breeding.

“Five hundred pairs [of gulls] so a thousand chicks times two or three times a year – that’s where your big problem comes from. Where we are now, the breeding season is well under way. The parents are looking for food and swooping or diving in as people are coming out of shops,” he concluded.

As they are wild birds, seagulls’ nests and eggs are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. It is against the law to recklessly kill, injure or harm their nests.