A news report today reveals that a seagull hit a power line this morning, causing an outage on San Francisco's Treasure Island that lasted for about 45 minutes.
As their population continues to increase as these birds learn to seek out sources of organic waste which becomes available in small but widely disseminated quantities in malls, shopping centers, recreational parks, etc. or concentrated in massive quantities at solid waste collection points, fish and other food processing plants, etc.
There are many similarities in the dynamic, determining or facilitating factors and associated damages between infestations by rats and infestations by seagulls, for instance both are motivated by scavenging on easy available food, both tend to invade human territory, both present health risks for humans.
The differences are however dramatic and interesting. Go anywhere else, but not in my space, outlaws.
Unlike pigeons, seagulls enjoy a positive image, they have been occasionally elevated to symbol of purity, freedom, beauty The Seagull by Jonathan Livingston.
Rats, if anything at all to be found in the literature, is the tale of the Magic Flute that lured all rats of the village to drown in the river, or some strong mention here and there in the Count of Monte Cristo, Les Miserables, the Phantom of the Opera etc. just to underline the horror connotation of the scenes.
Seagulls have much more mobility thus ability to find alternatives. Also they are gifted by a super developed eye-sight ( a very long range recognition of the surroundings)
Rats are much more limited in their movements than common knowledge is aware of and their main sensory tools to recognize their whereabouts are their whiskers. ( a very short range recognition of the surroundings).
Rats infestation of cities has been going on for centuries. For centuries rats are officially a “pest”.
Seagull infestation of inland territory is happening now and seagulls are not considered a pest; in fact in many states and foreign countries these are protected species. In any area near the sea, which has restaurants all around the seagull issue is a daily confrontation.
Riccardo Machiavelli comes from Italy with an impressive background and moved to beautiful City Island, in a condo on the water and with a couple of friends he set out to build a private marina, the day after the commissioning party, seagulls took over the brand new installation covering it in no time with cracked mussel shells and highly toxic and aesthetically non-viable feces.
Riccardo Machiavelli does not want to hurt the birds, but…. He built his marina pretty much hands-on and it is his, not the bird’s playground. They got to move out. Ricardo believes in sharing and his avid curiosity left him memories of how Italian fishermen interact with seagulls as they collect and separate by kind and size the fish collected in their nets. A few days later he developed a seagull deterrent system and no seagull ever landed again on the new docs, no bird was hurt or severely disturbed, it was just told in a form that the gulls can understand: this small structure is my territory, you have the entire sea and cost line to pick where you want to be free and undisturbed, this little piece is mine for me to use without having to seat in your crap.
A month later Seagull control Systems was born and always operating from our small CI it has provided satisfactory relief from seagull infestation to a variety of problem areas ranging from small private roof tops and or marinas, to a variety of industrial installations including county wide waste management stations, to very large industrial buildings, to the graduate school of the US Navy in Monterrey, Ca, to a BP oil refinery, a container station in Vancouver, Canada.