Second Opinion: Culling seagulls, what next?

Herring gulls have been making a nuisance of themselves in towns and cities, snatching mobile phones and grabbing food from tables and hands. Senator Denis O'Donovan wants a debate on these "vicious" birds, which might include culling.

I agree with him, we need to talk, but not about birds that have the temerity to interfere with human lifestyles. We need a debate about why humans assume they have the right to cull animals perceived to be a threat to their comfort. There is no such right. Humans do not own the world. Planet earth belongs to all the animals that live on it. Gulls, and other birds and animals, have the right to forage for food wherever they like. If gulls develop bad habits, it is our fault.

According to Bird Watch Ireland, gulls are useful scavengers and provide a service to towns and cities. They clean up food detritus and keep down the number of rats. Herring gull numbers have declined by more than 50 per cent over the past few decades because of human interference with habitats.

Birds give the world more than they take. Each breeding pair of Ireland’s 1.1 million Irish blue tits has to find 10,000 caterpillars over a two-week period while their chicks are preparing to fledge. Kill off the caterpillars with pesticides and no more blue tits. Vultures in India have become 99 per cent extinct because of predation on livestock treated with pharmaceuticals and, as a result, there has been an increase in the number of feral dogs and the incidence of rabies in humans.

Nuisance factor

Most of the recent media coverage on gulls was about their nuisance factor. No one challenged the mindset that assumes humans have the right to treat the world as their property. The same mindset is responsible for the current growth model favoured by politicians and manufacturers: produce unnecessary stuff for humans to buy and then discard in rubbish dumps. Pope Francis’s recent encyclical letter on “Care for Our Common Home” strongly criticised the dominant growth model. “The pace of consumption, waste and environmental change has so stretched the planet’s capacity that our contemporary lifestyle . . . can only precipitate catastrophes.” And “The earth, our home, is beginning to look like an immense pile of filth.”

President Michael D Higgins made an impassioned plea to change the mindset and unsustainable growth model at the Summit of Consciences for the Climate in Paris on July 21st this year.

He described the “hubris that regarded nature as a subject for domination and exploitation” and how “we need to break away from a destructive relationship with the diversity that is life on our planet towards a new paradigm of existence, one that will be built on the respect we must have for the wonderment and renewal of nature.”

On the current growth model he noted: “Extreme individualism manifesting itself as insatiable consumption and accompanied by unconscionable levels of inequality characterises much of what is regarded as the developed part of our planet. The narrow paradigm of progress now threatens the destruction of the habitat . . . as well as precipitating unsustainable levels of poverty and inequalities in our human communities.”

He argued for a balance between “the discourses of economics, ethics and integrated ecology”.

Rising inequality

Inequality in Ireland is on the rise. The latest figures from the

Central Statistics Office

show that deprivation rates have increased from 14 per cent in 2008 to 31 per cent in 2013. Consistent poverty rates have doubled in the same time period. It would take a person on the minimum wage hundreds of years to earn what the highest-paid Irish chief executives earn in a single year. Employers are already complaining about a possible increase of 50 cent in the minimum wage, still €2 short of a living wage. Income inequalities create health inequalities and the death rates from cancer and heart disease are up to six times higher in poorer parts of this country.

It is time to start sharing the planet, ensuring that all animals, including humans of every ethnic group and nationality, get their fair share of resources. It is no exaggeration to say that unless the current growth model favoured by most of the world's politicians changes, extinction of the human race is inevitable. At least then no one will have to worry about gulls interfering with their lifestyles because there won't be life, let alone lifestyles.

Biodiversity is good for human health so why not sign up to Bird Watch Ireland's newsletter at birdwatchireland.ie? drjackyjones@gmail.com Dr Jacky Jones is a former HSE regional manager of health promotion and a member of the Health Ireland Council.