The calls come after reports of gulls attacking people and trying to steal food in parts of Dublin.
BirdWatch Ireland has described calls for contraceptive pills to be fed to seagulls as flawed and not “thought out properly”.
Niall Hatch, Head of Communications and Development for BirdWatch Ireland, made the comments on Newstalk’s The Pat Kenny Show on Tuesday (11 October) following a report in The Irish Sun.
The report outlined calls by politicians to leave out pellets stuffed with contraceptive drugs for seagulls in response to complaints regarding the birds attacking people and trying to steal their food in parts of Dublin.
While Hatch acknowledged that seagulls can be problematic, he told Kenny that there are “quite a few flaws with the proposal”.
He also said that the issues with the gulls could be solved by humans trying to change their behaviour.
“When it comes to the gulls – in particular the herring gull which is the main species complained about here… it’s actually a species which has been in serious decline in Ireland,” Hatch added.
“It’s a protected species under Irish and under EU law and in fact, the population has declined so much that we’d be very loath to see actual moves taken by Government to try and limit their population yet further.
“I think when it comes to the contraceptive ideas, there are a lot of problems and flaws there.
“First of all, how do you ensure an adequate dosage or correct dosage for the birds? How do you ensure that other creatures aren’t going to eat them?
“I know this has been trailled in other cities like in Belgium, it’s been trailled with pigeons for example. They bring out corn with contraceptives in it.
“Now, pigeons are very different birds. It’s easier to target those kinds of species because they eat corn.
“Gulls will eat almost anything and so will many other creatures. So, you could see dogs being affected by this, many other bird species with probably the same sort of base. So, that will be very difficult to do anyway.
“There are problems with overdosing perhaps. So, no, it’s something that hasn’t really been thought out properly.”
Hatch said that an important factor in places facing problems with aggressive seagulls such as Howth is people feeding the birds.
He urged people not to do this as some gulls have learned that “they can get an easy meal from humans”.
“They’re smart and they’re resourceful and they also often will take an easy option,” he explained.
“There’s no getting around that. So, I think that limiting their access to that food is important.
“You often see black bin bags thrown out on the street, refuse from commercial outlets. You see overflowing public bins as well.
“That’s not a modern waste management system. We shouldn’t have a system of bins where birds can actually climb into them and take out food.”
Hatch also told Kenny: “We need to see [the gulls] not as the problem in themselves. They’re the symptom of a much bigger problem.
“When you see birds changing their behaviour so rapidly, it’s a sign of things going out of kilter in our natural environment.
“We’ve pushed the gulls to doing this,” he added, before saying more needs to be done to restore the birds’ ecosystems.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
