Posted on 01/03/2009 6:27:48 PM PST by JoeProBono
Seagulls are thriving in cities attacking people, deafening residents, damaging buildings, spreading panic and disease. By 2014 there could be as many as 6m of this new urban menace From a distance, the landscape looks like a tranquil slice of rural England. Pudding-shaped hills, green valleys rimmed with autumn-coloured trees. But there is something odd. Maybe half a mile away there is a brilliant white stripe against the slate-grey sky. One moment it is a thin spiral, like a tornado. Then it sinks down, only to billow again like smoke from a volcano.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
We don't have much trouble with our seagulls in Corpus Christi. We even put them on our ciy flag, which was voted the 10th best city flag in the US in 2001 by the North American Vexillological Association.
AV
Colin, 38, put a job advert up in his local Asda after he was repeatedly pecked by the birds while working on rooftop projects in Brighton.
He received 20 phone calls and the successful applicant Steve Jackow - now nicknamed Steven Seagull - spends his time scaring off pesky gulls by waving a broom in the air.
Steve, 28, wears a fluorescent yellow bib to scare off the airborne predators and has a referee's whistle for persistent offenders.
Colin said: "I don't know what it is about me they don't like but I've got cuts and bruises all over my face and body.
"I started off by wearing a hard hat but it kept getting knocked off - then I had my sandwich box stolen."
Experts say the birds are merely defending their nests but Colin said they go too far. He said the last straw came when he needed two stitches in a cut to the back of his head after he was targeted while loading roof timber onto a pulley.
"I felt like I'd been shot in the skull and when I when I touched my hair it was streaming with blood. I looked around and I was surrounded in a cloud of feathers - that was it, something had to be done."
Colin said he could just about afford to fork out the minimum wage for a personal bodyguard.
Steve said: "When he told me what the job was I thought he was taking the mickey but then he showed me some of his scars. This bloke was deadly serious.
"I try not to clobber the birds, just scare them away. They can be quite vicious though and you really need eyes in the back of your head.
"My arms ache at the end of the day and I almost dislocated my shoulder once with a life-saving swipe.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.