{"id":410354,"date":"2026-04-21T17:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T17:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/410354\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T17:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T17:28:09","slug":"seagull-literally-ripped-their-lip-call-for-hawks-to-tackle-gull-menace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/410354\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Seagull literally ripped their lip&#8217;: Call for hawks to tackle gull menace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A D\u00fan Laoghaire Councillor has called for birds of prey to be used to reduce the number of seagulls on the coast of Dublin.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Fine Gael\u2019s Frank McNamara said the birds have become a local menace and called for urgent action.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought to myself, why don\u2019t we bring in a hawkery and have birds of prey go on patrol around the town during peak times?\u201d he asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat way the seagull population would be deterred from being in the town during that time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newstalk.com\/shows\/lunchtime-live-234859\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lunchtime Live<\/a>, Cllr Frank Fahy said gulls are a \u201cmajor problem\u201d in Galway as well, describing them as \u201cextremely noisy\u201d during the nesting season.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He urged people to avoid giving them food if possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor people living in city centre locations, or even in rural areas where somebody&#8217;s actually, if neighbours of yours are feeding seagulls, you cannot sleep at night, particularly during the summer, you can&#8217;t open windows with them,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI&#8217;m not sure what the solution is, but I think we as people have to change our habits; they&#8217;re a wild bird, they&#8217;re well able to look after themselves.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey live exclusively in Eyre Square, all hours of the day and night, feeding on takeaway food.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA relative of my own was walking up Shop Street one day and was putting a sandwich into their mouth and the seagull came and literally ripped their lip.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1765023\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/seagull-plastic-bag.jpg\" alt=\"A seagull trying to get into a plastic rubbish bag, 17-9-24\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1367\"\/> A seagull trying to get into a plastic rubbish bag. Picture by: Mark Walker \/ Alamy.<\/p>\n<p>Also on the programme, biologist \u00c9anna N\u00ed Lamhna expressed scepticism that gulls are the solution.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow do you know the hawks will go for the seagulls?\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, the seagulls, those herring gulls are bigger than the hawks. If I was a hawk, I&#8217;d go for something smaller.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen you&#8217;d have to send out hawks that actually attack birds; there&#8217;s only the peregrine falcon and the sparrow hawk that attack birds.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe others attack mice and rats and things like that. So, that wouldn&#8217;t work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Main image: A woman and a seagull. Picture by: Alamy.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A D\u00fan Laoghaire Councillor has called for birds of prey to be used to reduce the number of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":["post-410354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}