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An elderly woman in Sidmouth was set upon by six seagulls last week. The screeching birds, who were after the food in her shopping bags, pecked and battered the woman to the ground. When neighbours rushed in with towels to ward off the gulls, the birds only stepped up their attack, leaving the woman with blood pouring from her head and traumatised neighbours calling for a cull.
It sounds harrowing, and sinisterly Hitchcockian, but similar incidents are not uncommon. Seagulls have grown brazenly aggressive, tempted away from their natural habitats by our carelessly spilt ice-creams and unguarded rubbish bins. Silently, they watch from the rooftops, preying on easy human targets.
"I know of a man who was savaged by a seagull while up a ladder. He fell and was killed," warns Dr Brian Boughton, a retired doctor
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Seagulls prey on humans, but the law sides with the winged pests, warns loic rich
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who founded the Dartmouth Anti-Seagull Action Group. "They go for children, dogs and cats. Plenty of people are put in hospital by seagulls. But the RSPCA sticks up for the gulls."
As does the Department of Food and Environment Affairs (DEFRA), which can issue licences to shoot seagulls - but only to protect other animals, crops and fisheries, not humans.
Which is why Dr Boughton, who has a licence, was convicted under the Wildlife and Countryside Act in May after he shot a seagull that had defecated on his wife's lunch. Dr Boughton, who strung up the bloody carcass to deter other gulls, hopes to raise £5,000 for his court appeal.
"We can't just shoot something because it's irritating," says DEFRA. "We must learn to co-exist peacefully with seagulls." Try telling that to the old lady of Sidmouth. 
FIRST POSTED JULY 3, 2006
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