Psycho seagulls wreck havoc with ‘acid poo’ as UK seaside city spends £13k to cease them
Fed up North Yorkshire Council are now calling the bird experts in after having enough of their psycho seagulls and their poo spoiling the UK tourist hotspot of Scarborough
Desperate town chiefs in one Britain’s best-loved holiday hotspots have splurged £13,000 on bird boffs to fix their psycho seagull problem.
Flying bandits with “acid” poo are wrecking buildings and leaving Scarborough in a mess.
North Yorkshire Council chiefs called in the RSPB and Exeter University eggheads before appointing an ornithologist to send the beaked scoundrels packing.
The expert focused on the town’s famous Grand Hotel where the pests have been nesting on balconies, attacking guests and leaving grim guano everywhere.
They advised the council to invest in artificial nesting towers to lure the birds away from buildings, with the full research to be published later this year.
But the towers can take years to be effective meaning this year’s visitors are in for more scrapes with the beaked nutters.
North Yorkshire Council said there is a problem with “gulls snatching food from people, causing distress and sometimes injury”.
Pest controllers NBC Environment, who were drafted in to install nets, at the landmark hotel said the kittiwake gulls were “attacking the guests on the balconies”.
They warned their hazardous poo can lead “to bacteria and disease being transmitted to hotel guests and staff.”
The firm sent in a crack team of experts who shimmied up ropes as the building is perched on a clifftop – meaning seagulls flock to it.
An NBC Environment spokesman said: “Gull guano has a damaging effect on a building fabric due to its acidic nature.
“The intricate Victorian architecture of the hotel offered an abundance of secure nesting places for local gulls.
“As a result, the entire sea and northerly facing walls of the building became completely engulfed with kittiwakes, their nests and fouling.”
The iconic Grand Hotel Scarborough is a Grade II Listed building and was one of Europe’s first purpose-built large scale hotels.
It is known for its locally-sourced yellow brickwork, its four towers and harbour sea views.
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