SUPER—SEAGULLS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 96, 4 December 1939, Page 8

SUPER—SEAGULLS

ALLEGED ENEMIES OF TROUT

LIFT FISH FROM WATER

Occasionally a report comes from Christchurch about diving feats of black-backed gulls Avhich are charged Avith crimes against trout. "They must have super-seagulls in that city," comments a Wellington member of the Forest and Bird Protection Society. "During the past ■30 A r ears, I haA r e frequently strolled along the Wellington Avaterfront AA'here black-backed and red-billed gulls can be ahvays seen fossicking for food. Sometimes I have seen A r ei'A' large shoals ot small herring and mackerel swimming close to the surface, but never once have I seen one of those gulls for such n I have seen a swimming black-back try to snap up one of the fish Avhich almost touched its feathers, but it failed. Only once have 1 seen black-backs seize live herrings, and that Avas after the fish had been affected by liquid discharge from a steamer. They struggled to the surface AA'here they flopped about helplessly and AA*ere easy prey for the gulls.

"I have a belief that trout taken by gulls from the Avon rive- must be sickly specimens lacking the well known agility of healthy trout. There is plenty of household drainage into that stream, which is sometimes polluted. This may explain the seagulls' seizure of weakened trout which Avere probably doomed to death, even if the birds had not caught them.

The charge against the gulls is another reminder of the need of accurate research and study of wildlife"