Are seagulls a menace we can get rid of?

HOW to get rid of seagulls (Letters)? No problem. Feed them the recipe gulls find drop-dead irresistible. When I was a Torbay resident, our roof played host to the annual seagull nesting season and our kitchen was their larder — until, that is, the day of the garden party for which batches of scones baked in advance and frozen had been left to defrost. Fast-forward to the garden a couple of hours later: our greedy annual visitors were on their backs, legs pointing skywards, each with a frozen scone in its crop. That was the last time our roof was used as a nesting box (recipe available on request). As for pigeons — best put the cat among them.

FAITH HINES, Long Melford, Suffolk. During World War II, troops manning coastal anti-aircraft and searchlight batteries were often plagued by aggressive gulls, which snatched their precious corned-beef sarnies. the answer was to replace the corned-beef with bicarbonate of soda (baking powder) from the cookhouse. seagulls with bellyache are unable to burp and the word, in gull speak, soon got around.

KEVIN HENEGHAN, St Helens, Lancs. IT’S true that seagulls are attracted by rubbish on the streets — and whose fault is that? Ours, of course. In Bristol, if it wasn’t for the dirty human habit of throwing food on the streets, there wouldn’t be a problem at all. I was in Bordeaux (our twin city) a few years ago, a city of similar size and about the same distance from the coast as Bristol, but it has no seagull ‘problem’ because the French prefer to eat their food in cafes and restaurants and discarded street food is rarely seen. The seagulls spend most of their time on the rubbish dumps on the outskirts. Gulls — and pigeons — are only doing the same as we do every day: acquiring enough food for themselves and their families.

GEOFF ROGERS, Bristol.