Hereford City Council Councillors have tonight shared their concern about the decision by Defra to reduce and temporarily stop issuing licences to control the number of gulls in town and city centres across the country.
Councillors voted in favour of writing to local MP Jesse Norman to find out what can be done to help control the population of the gulls.
The concern is that if nothing is done, all the hard work and money spent over the past few years to control numbers, will simply have been wasted.
Assessment carried out by Natural England has since indicated that the scale of activity carried out under licences in recent years is above a sustainable level. Continued activity at these levels is likely to have a harmful impact on the population levels of both species.
For this reason, it is necessary to scale back the lethal control of these gull species. In rural areas, where populations overall are known to be in decline, Natural England will set upper ‘safe’ number of birds that could be killed. Upper ‘safe’ levels have not been identified for lethal control in urban populations of gulls, as these are faring better.
