Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
Now, patients and visitors at the Galway Clinic have been warned that they may be attacked by aggressive seagulls because angry gulls have swooped in in recent weeks on people who are getting out of their vehicles in the multi-storey car park at the hospital as they emerged. And so the warning has gone out to be careful, particularly during the nesting season of April and May.
Well, it's not just a problem restricted to Galway. I'm joined now by Fine Gael counsellor Frank McNamara. It's a problem in Dublin too, Frank, is it?
That's correct, Clare. Yeah, yeah.
Chapter 2: What warning has been issued regarding seagulls at Galway Clinic?
In Dun Laoghaire, which is a coastal town, the seagull population has shot up in recent years. We have lots of nice benches on the waterfront for people having a sandwich, drinking a cup of coffee, eating a pastry. And the seagulls come up to them, grab it out of their hands and they rip open bins. So it's a real problem in Dun Laoghaire.
Have you ever been attacked by one yourself?
I have, Clare, yeah, I have. Me and my friends were having a sandwich and a seagull came up behind me and then just grabbed out of my hand. So that's where the idea came from. The whole sandwich. For me to bring emotion forward.
I've heard in the past they'll swoop down if someone's eating a burger and they'll take the meat but they'll leave the bread. So they take the whole sandwich on you.
They did, yeah, they got, they did, yeah, the whole thing. I mean, sure, it's unedible then, like it's ripped off, it's on the ground. I know, yeah. And then a bunch of them are jumping on it like, you know, you can't, it's game over really, Clare. Like, I'm not going to eat like, whatever, a wrap that's been ripped by seagulls.
No, probably not advisable, Frank. So what are you suggesting should happen?
So, well, I used to live in America, Clare, and... I live in Chicago and they had a real problem with rats in the city while I was living there. And the mayor of Chicago brought in this idea of releasing cats in certain areas of the city to bring down the rat population.
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Chapter 3: How is the seagull problem affecting other locations like Dublin?
So many years later, I'm a county councillor in Dun Laoghaire and I thought to myself, why don't we bring in a hawkerie and have birds of prey go on patrol around the town during peak times? That way the seagull population will be deterred from being in the town during that time. It's been done in other cities.
OK, would we not all be nervous of the hawks, though, circling overhead?
Well, I don't think so, Clare, to be honest.
Do you envisage a bloodbath now or are they just scaring them away?
They're just scaring them away. They act as a deterrent. And you can train these birds. That's the thing, Clare. So in other words, you just train them to go on patrol in the sky and they go to and from the hawkerie. And they're maintained by humans who control them. But they are a very effective deterrent from seagulls from hanging around because they're obviously afraid of hawkers.
a hawk or a falcon.
Yeah, I was reading this morning a study from the University of Exeter from a few years ago. Apparently, if you stare at a seagull, you'll scare them away. And I'm hearing that 98FM put googly eyes on a burger and they won't go for the burger if they see the googly eyes. So it's eyes that do it, Frank. Maybe that's something we can look at.
Well, I mean, that'd be a novel idea for packaging, I guess, of sandwiches in Dun Laoghaire. But I'm thinking I'm going to stick with my hawk idea for the time being. It's a real problem, Clare, because you see, the wildlife acts that have been drafted many, many years ago, the seagull population was significantly less back then. And as a result, they are actually a protected species.
So it is very difficult for a county council like myself to bring in policies to deal with the seagull population because they are still protected. But as I say, a hawkery would deter them. It wouldn't actually, you know, there wouldn't be any violence, but I think it would be quite effective.
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Chapter 4: What personal experiences do people have with aggressive seagulls?
The problem is that the wildlife acts are quite broadly worded. So a whole load of bird species are covered within it. And I think a few of those species, like the common seagull, the population is so great
that i think protecting it is unnecessary and is actually causing more harm than good as you described there in in galway recently where seagulls are attacking people going to and from a hospital you know it's just um we have to do something about it because the population's gone up so much because there's no natural predators to bring the population down and seagulls thrive in like urban environments like we like now when we have like throwaway sandwiches and pastries all over the
And they're huge, aren't they, the seagulls?
They are huge.
They're getting bigger and bigger. I had a lovely email from a man called Jim who's listening. He says, when I was a child, St. Stephen's Green was a great place to go and see the ducks and the other birds, but now it's mainly seagulls. They've killed all the young ducks and the moorhens and the blue tits and the wrens, etc. And he's calling for a cull of them. Would you support that?
A cull. I think a cull, well, under the current acts, they're protected, so that wouldn't be doable. I think there's a more humane way to deal with the population. Scare them off. Yeah, I think scaring them off, to my mind, would solve the problem, really. No, I think Cullingwood might be a bit OTT. The issue is that like from a distance, they look fine.
So if they're like out in the sea and they're little white specks, they look like nice little birds. But when they're up close to the size of a dog, like, you know, they're as big as a small dog. And they're huge. Yeah.
And they're they are quite they're very aggressive birds and they have no fear in jumping up to a human and coming right up to you and waiting for you to slip up, you know, and they see their chance.
Taking your sandwich. Frank, thanks so much for talking to us. Frank Magmar there, who is a finna grail cancer. And his suggestion is that you bring hawks in. to scare away the seagulls, not to kill them necessarily, but to send them back out to the cliffs and to the sea where arguably they should be and not eating sandwiches in our towns around the coast in Ireland.
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