Sunderland's seagulls take but they don't 'steal'

Yes it’s that time of year again. It comes round so quickly.

When we occasionally read of a tourist being mauled by lions on the Serengeti, or that a surfer has been chomped by sharks off the Australian coast, we sympathise with the human victims yet attach no blame to the animals. They are wild animals after all.

However, when a seagull swoops down to grab a corned beef pasty from human hands as the snack’s owner strolls along Sea Road, people are scandalised.

Even the fact – for a fact it is – that the birds’ behaviour in this regard is largely man-induced, does not stem the flow of outrage. A seagull nicking chips can only be paralleled by the worst excesses of the French Revolution.

The truth is that what humans have done to gulls is far more reprehensible than the “revenge” they extract, starting with what we have done to their habitat. They were here millions of years before us. Or Greggs.

Their grievances far outweigh ours. Just because they are yet to put those grievances officially in writing, does not invalidate them.

“Vermin” is not a legal term. Nor do they meet the dictionary definition of the word (although humans arguably do).

Seagulls are not the most charming of creatures. But people who routinely refer to them as “rats with wings” really ought to address the laziness of such “thinking”. Some would even favour a cull of gulls, which are protected by law and with good reason.

A more sane option would be to PUT YOUR LITTER IN THE BIN! IT’S EASY!

And if you happen to be too stupid or lazy to carry out this most valuable, yet distinctly unchallenging act, then please don’t whinge because seagulls aren’t our best mates.

They don’t “steal” either. The use of the word implies that they’re expected to pay when they don’t have credit cards. They don’t even have pockets.