The beach is getting to be a dangerous place these days. You could always drown, or get washed out to your doom by a riptide, or smashed into a rock by storm waves, or even get eaten by a shark. Most of your trouble is going to come from the sea part of the seashore.
You're not expecting Death From Above.
Now, fear you not, I'll be speaking of English things today. However, it's just a hop across the puddle from England to here. England's problems can become our problems very easily, even without the actual suspects themselves coming over the pond.
What you and I think of as Cranberry County could very easily be overrun with Attack Gulls. These attack gulls are all the rage in England right now, and there is no reason to think that we aren't in for some of the same medicine.
In England, seagulls are attacking people to the extent that the Prime Minister had to address it. They have tallied up a few corpses, including a human.
Gulls are big birds, and remarkably adaptive. They'll eat anything people eat, and then some. This makes them frequent visitors to McDonald's, dumps, sporting arenas, wharfs, and anywhere else people might leave food lying around.
While I personally think they're cute, many view them as a pest species. Nicknames for gulls include "flying rat," "featherpest," "wharf rat" and "air dog." They beg for food harder than any non-dog species, and are not above taking food if it is not proffered.
English residents are complaining about gulls being involved in various forms of malfeasance. The principal offenses include:
- Two seagulls in Cornwall killing a Yorkshire Terrier named "Roo." They had previously been stealing Roo's food. Roo weighed 2 pounds. Cause of death = head trauma, and he was covered in peck marks. He was killed in front of a 3 year old.
- There's another gull vs. dog killing story in England somewhere, I couldn't find the link. (Editor: A chihuahua in Devon was killed by gulls)
- A pet tortoise, also from Cornwall, was turned over and pecked to death by a flock of seagulls (not the band). Tortoise name = "Stig."
- Numerous other near-fatal or unreported fatalities involving cats, dogs, pet rodents and other gull prey.
Then, the gulls started messing with People Food
- A pensioner (English for "old person") got her wig split by a dive-bombing gull who may have mistaken her hair for a rabbit or something. A different white-head was attacked by the town wharf earlier in the week.
- English people call such attacks either "being swooped upon" or a "scalping."
- Gulls attacked an elderly man in Yorkshire. It looked Hitchcockian, according to witnesses. Another pensioner (that's a catchy phrase, I'm starting to go to it instinctively) and her husband came to his aid, and she got her pelvis broken for her troubles.
- Postal service was disrupted in wherever you live to be Cornish by gulls, who may have been protecting nests. This is even more fun because I found out that mail carriers are called "posties" in the UK, and the offender was called a "stroppy seagull."
Then, sh*t got real.
An elderly mail-carrier died after suffering a heart attack during an attack by gulls. He had been working in his garden at the time, something that gull-attack researchers like myself come to realize is a bad move for old people in Gull Country.
This was the only gull-related fatality I came across, but I'm sure there were dozens in pre-history.
Two other gull attacks jumped out of the news, and note the locations, which prove that gull attacks are not distinctive to England.
- Pope Francis may have invented a ghastly new sport when he had two children release Peace Doves. As you've probably already guessed by the previous content of this article, the Peace Doves were set upon by a gull and a crow. Gulls and crows, who usually compete for food and are not above eating each other, become allies in some food-gathering situations. Fun aside... the attacking gull was nicknamed the "Holy See-gull." This was in the very non-English locale of Vatican City.
- In Ocean City, Maryland, a man made the news for snapping a gull's neck on a crowded beach. Police responded, and left with a story. The man had been defending his two year old daughter. Gulls had honed in on her because she had a sandwich, and they weren't taking No for an answer. Dad did what Dads sometimes have to do with overbearing suitors, and snapped his neck like Rick Rude. The child suffered pecking injuries. Dad claimed he dispatched the beast with a towel snap, and broke the gull's neck as a mercy killing. "Love is the shadow that ripens the wine."
- A girl in England, who lives in a link I saw when I was thinking about writing this story but can not find now that I actually AM writing the story) had a finger nearly severed when a gull tried to steal a snack out of her hand.
Anyhow, enough links. I have proven that gulls are dangerous, and that you should live in fear of them.
Gulls attack humans for two reasons, generally. Not enough research has been done to determine if sociopathology exists among gulls, who would then just attack for the f*ck of it.
One, the gull is protecting her nest. Bird eggs are a source of food for countless animals, birds, and what have you. Gulls know the eggs are yummy, and go to great lengths to protect them. This is generally what happened if you read about a human without food being attacked.
Two, gulls are going after food. Gulls get fed by humans, both directly and indirectly. They come to associate humans with food. When they see people, they start thinking about food.
Food theft is a gull behavior known as, and I'm not making this up, kleptoparasitism. Even the spell check doesn't believe that I didn't make that term up.
Kleptoparasitism is when animals steal food from more adept predators. A bear may chase wolves off a kill. A shark may appropriate a meal from a spearfisher. Stuff like that. Throw some french fries out of your window the next time you're at a coastal McDonald's. Watch a big gull show up and chase off the smaller gulls. That's kleptoparasitism.
Applied in a gull/human interaction, it involves either a dive bombing attack on a sandwich, a hopping gull trying to swipe a sandwich from a vulnerable human, or a mass attack by a pile o' gulls.
A dive bombing is the only real threat to an adult human, although getting pecked is no fun. A big gull, such as an around-here Great Black Backed Gull, can be a yard across and weigh 5 pounds. While not in the 200 mph range of a diving falcon, a diving gull can hit 30-50 mph from a short height and still make a precision attack.
For a basis of comparison, Logan Thomas threw the fastest ball at the NFL combine in the most recent test (2014) I've read about. He hit 65 mph, with an object roughly the same size, shape and weight as a seagull. Imagine having him throw at the back of your head, and the ball having talons. That's a gull attack, player!
Gulls are more built for combat than we give them credit for. Gulls can kill hawks and eagles if they get the drop on them, and there are reports from Europe of gulls killing sheep and even a deer. They can do damage with their beak, with their powerful talons, or their sheer f=ma dive-bombng striking power. A Mister Webster from 1980s Duxbury High School would be pleased to see that I somehow retained Newton's second law of motion from Physics class.
Gulls generally, but not always, launch stealth attacks. It's easier to attack someone who doesn't see you coming, and gulls- an apex predator anywhere where large eagles and hawks are not present- are fully aware of this. Be it for food or to drive you from the nest, they'll swoop down from above or behind, maybe both. They'll strike with their talons, and leave you in stitches.
Cape Cod, the South Coast and the South Shore have seagulls all over the friggin' place. They look innocent, but they could be massing, plotting, or both. One day, people, there may be a reckoning. Don't you dare say that Cranberry County Magazine didn't try to warn you.
Remember.... Plymouth was the home of Genghis Swan.
Here's some English stuff about How To Survive A Gull Attack. Be careful, they speak English-English, and you have to look up terms like "Stroppy."
Just so you know that I listen to both sides, here is a link to Seagulls Are Not Evil.
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