Seagulls cause chaos after taking over the parking lot in BC’s North Mall

Hordes of wandering seagulls cause a flap in a mall parking lot hundreds of miles from any ocean.

Dozens of the fledgling fledglings roam outside Parkwood Place in downtown Prince George, BC, as adult birds squawk and soar overhead.

Aside from the noise and poop, there have also been clashes when the birds strayed into vehicular traffic, overwhelming a local wildlife rescue effort.

“I’ve had everything from broken wings, broken legs, to dehydration and starvation,” said Dayna Slater of Good Caws Crow Rescue Societywho takes care of the injured animals.

Slater estimated she had gotten as many as 40 birds in the past week.

“Some are dead on arrival,” she said.

The ‘McDonald’s Seagull’

Jack Bowling, a longtime birdwatcher and member of the Prince George Naturalists, identified the birds as ring-billed gulls, similar to those found on the coast but more likely to be found inland.

He said they naturally nest in sand or gravel bars in lakes and rivers, but also enjoy the flat roofs and food supply offered by malls like Parkwood, earning them the nickname “McDonald’s gulls.”

Bowling said that while gull colonies have been spotted in Prince George for about the last two decades, the phenomenon of them nesting in the heart of the city is relatively new.

“We thought they had been there for a few years, but we never had any concrete evidence that they were breeding,” he said.

“But this year it looks like they were successful.”

A social kind

Bowling said the gulls nest in safe environments such as those provided by the mall roof and the juveniles begin learning to walk on their own in the spring.

About five weeks after hatching, they build up enough spring mass to launch themselves into the air and glide to the ground, but they cannot travel distance or gain height, so after landing they are forced to walk around until they learn to fly, usually a week or two later.

Bowling noted that the adults watch over the young until they can fend for themselves, praising them for their intelligence and social nature.

“Just leave them alone,” he advised people wondering what to do with the birds.

“They’ll be able to fly pretty fast and they’ll be away from people.”

Protected birds

Not everyone may follow that advice. Several people in the community have reported deliberately running drivers into the seagulls, and concerns have also been raised about whether maintenance crews are removing the birds from the roof, although no evidence has been produced.

In a statement to CBC News, the mall’s management company says it has no plans to forcibly remove or relocate the birds out of respect “for their place in the natural ecosystem.”

And even if they wanted to move them, they would have to take special steps to do so. All seagulls are protected by Canada’s Migratory Birds Treaty Acta fact confirmed by BC Provincial Court in 2019 when a Vancouver man narrowly avoided hefty fines of up to $300,000 for destroying an apartment nest, pleading ignorance of the law.

A spokesperson for the B.C. Department of the Environment could not confirm whether conservation officials have received any complaints of animal cruelty towards seagulls in Prince George, but did note that anyone seeking to remove them must obtain a special permit from the Canadian Wildlife Service. .

A humane solution

That’s a fact that fellow birder Steve Smith made his town aware last year when seagulls began nesting on the roof of an arena in Quesnel, about 60 miles south of Prince George, causing similar problems.

After helping free some of the fledglings that jumped off the roof, he spoke to city officials about the need to find a humane way to move the birds if they didn’t want the problem to reoccur.

The solution they found was a product which plays a recording of a gull in distress to deter them from nesting, which was successfully used this year to scare the birds away to an abandoned shopping center elsewhere in the city.

Like Bowling, Smith is enthusiastic about the birds considered a pest by many, pointing out that the only reason they are in cities is because humans are altering the landscape and littering it with garbage.

“We’re making a mess of it, aren’t we?” he said.

“They clean up after us.”