CRAFTY seagulls have been spotted stealing from a local supermarket again, as declining food sources drive the birds to new lengths to survive.
The birds were seen by shoppers taking food from Morrison’s Daily at Castle Quay recently.
Mick Dryden, who chairs the ornithology section of the Société Jersiaise, said their surveys showed a ‘vast drop’ in the seagull population.
He said: ‘It’s a completely learned behaviour. This is something that has happened a lot in the last few years, they’re very intelligent creatures.
‘Their population is declining – in the last 20 years our surveys show a vast drop. The population has at least halved in the last 20 years.
‘Most shops have a food rack that people can pick up food and throw it in the basket. The seagulls can see the food as long as the doors are open. They’ve worked out they can get in and get out again as the sensors are at ground level.’
A bird – who apparently went by the alias Roger because of his ability to dodge law enforcement – repeatedly targeted the Morrisons shop at Castle Quay in 2020.
Mr Dryden attributed a lack of food options to less litter in the town.
He said: ‘There used to be hundreds of seagulls on the cliffs, now you would be lucky to find half a dozen gulls. They have always been a protected species. They’re a bit like Marmite, but most people would regard them as a pest and wouldn’t mind if they die out.’
Environmentalist Bob Tompkins said that seagulls’ diets were shifting from fish to what they could scavenge from food bags.
He said: ‘Herring gulls are a maritime gull species reliant on sources of fish. If they do not have that they will look to other sources of food. They are used to scavenging food bags and bins.’
Elsewhere across the Channel Islands, the reported closure of an open landfill site in Guernsey represented another blow to the food source for Jersey seagulls.
Mr Tompkins said: ‘Until very recently seagulls from Jersey were commuting to Guernsey for the waste site, which has now shut down and they have been denied another source of food.’
