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Could these seven reasons make you love seagulls?

Chip thieves.

Noisy chip thieves.

Noisy chip-stealing winged evil.

Seagulls don’t have the best reputation. Seen by many as a blight wherever they’re found, they’d probably make a lot of people’s top ten things they could do without. However, they do have their fans. There is, after all, the Mobile Gull Appreciation Unit, a kitsch coastal treasure that celebrates all things gull. In an attempt to balance the scales against that one time a gull stole your lunch, here are seven reasons why seagulls are actually not all that bad.

Mark Dion, Mobile Gull Appreciation Unit, commissioned by the Creative Foundation for Folkestone Triennial 2008.

1. They keep rats at bay

If it weren’t for gulls eating our waste, we’d probably have a lot more rats and rodents.

2. They provide a soundtrack to our memories

Even if their bolshiness isn’t appreciated, many people still love the sound of gulls at the seaside. Think of the herring gulls calling over the crashing waves in the Desert Island Discs signature tune.

3. They are highly adaptable

Gulls are masters of adaptability: that is why they have colonised our cities so successfully while struggling at the coast.

Where their natural habitat has declined and food has diminished, seagulls are suffering. However those gulls which have migrated to cities, which provide safety as well as an abundance of food, have managed to thrive.

Gulls are the kickass entrepreneurs of the avian world.

How the seagulls moved to the city

Brett Westwood follows gulls away from the sea and explores how they thrive in cities and at the landfill sites where birders gather to watch and ring them.

4. They have admirable traits

Even though gulls display many emotions which we would see as positives in a person (competitive spirit, willing to seize an opportunity), we disparage them for these traits. While it’s never a pleasant experience to have your lunch dive-bombed, maybe we should look at it from their point of view.

5. Spot the difference

Gull species are extremely complicated to tell apart and mastering it is the bird-watching equivalent of being able to distinguish fine wines.

6. They are more sinned against than sinning

In a study of human/gull interactions, it was found that a human was far less likely to be "attacked" – ie chip stealing – by a gull than a gull was to be attacked by a human. One man in Bath was regularly seen standing naked on his balcony swinging a samurai sword to deter gulls from nesting near his flat – a technique researchers said would probably work in the short term but is legally dubious having in mind the indecent exposure; and, of course, the fact that nesting gulls are protected by law. Not many people know that...

7. Yes, they can actually be cuddly

Gull imagery is also commonly used in sports: teams such as Torquay United and Brighton & Hove Albion have them as mascots (Gilbert the Gull and Gully the Seagull, respectively). Others including Blackpool Seagulls and the Helsinki Seagulls name entire teams after them.

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