Bird experts pooh-pooh order not to feed gulls for sake of sea

Ecologists reject taxpayer-funded signs warning of marine pollution

A TAXPAYER-FUNDED campaign urging beachgoers not to feed seagulls because their droppings “pollute sea water” has been heavily criticised by RSPB Scotland.

Keep Scotland Beautiful, an environmental charity, has put up signs along seven beaches claiming waste from seabirds contaminates bathing waters.

The posters form part of the charity’s My Beach Your Beach campaign which has received at least £237,965 from the Scottish Government since 2018.

But RSPB Scotland has challenged the charity’s messaging and argued that gulls’ waste, known as guano, is an important source of food for marine life such as phytoplankton, a type of microscopic algae. Herring gull populations have fallen by more than 50 per cent since 1970 and are struggling to survive alongside other seabirds owing to changes in their natural food supplies.

“Gulls need our help, or at least our tolerance. All the species breeding in the UK are of conservation concern with some in very serious trouble,” an RSPB Scotland spokeswoman told the BBC.

“Gulls have traditionally lived along our coastlines, we can help by learning to live alongside them.”

Guano contains phosphorus and nitrogen which allow phytoplankton to grow and feed snails and fish, she added. While RSPB Scotland does not support feeding gulls in urban environments, because it encourages birds to harass people for food, they opposed the idea that seabirds polluted seawater as “droppings were part of nature’s cycle”. The British Trust for Ornithology has also criticised the campaign, saying seagull droppings are “pretty innocuous” and that it does not compare to levels of human sewage.

Dr Viola Ross-smith, a seabird-ecologist from the BTO, said: “I would challenge this message. Herring gulls are about a kilo and their poos aren’t that big and are pretty innocuous, it doesn’t compare to the amount of sewage and wet wipes that we put into the sea.

“We are the ones utterly affecting our environment, not seabirds.”

Keep Scotland Beautiful has run the My Beach Your Beach campaign since 2018 and has put up the signs in Ayr, Troon, Irvine, Saltcoats, Kinghorn, Portobello and Fisherrow. Other posters in the campaign have advice on dog fouling, litter, feeding gulls, and disposing of fats, oils and greases.

A Keep Scotland Beautiful spokeswoman said: “Gull and dog poo have been found to contribute to bathing water contamination and can affect bathing water classifications.”

The charity’s poster campaign has been endorsed by the Scottish Government, City of Edinburgh council and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa).

Sepa said microbial DNA source tracking at Portobello beach had found evidence of human, dog and gull sources affecting water quality.

Mark Lewis, birding and science officer at the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club, said the messaging was “a bit strange” because seabirds “will go to the toilet whether we feed them or not”.

The Scottish Government said stomach bacteria from any warm-blooded animal, including humans, livestock, gulls, dogs and other wildfowl, can contaminate bathing waters.