Herring gulls and kittiwakes have learned the easiest meal comes from robbing humans rather than at sea
I
n a flurry of wings, the predator was off with its prize: a steaming pasty snatched from the hands of a day tripper from Birmingham. “What do you want me to do about it?” her unsympathetic husband said. “I can’t fly.”
Such a scene has become an almost daily spectacle on the Scarborough seafront, said Amy Watson, a supervisor at the Fishpan restaurant, where hungry herring gulls lurk for their quarry.
With the summer holidays in full swing, seaside authorities across England are grappling with an annual influx of chip-pinching gulls – and the surge of complaints.
