Scotland’s First Gull Ranger Wants to Give Gulls a Makeover

Euan Ferguson knows he’s fighting an uphill battle. Scotland’s first-ever gull ranger, he patrols the narrow streets of Eyemouth, a fishing town on the Berwickshire coast, armed not with a net or a tranquilizer gun but with patience, a clipboard, and a deep understanding of the birds most people love to hate. His mission? To rewrite the narrative around gulls — to turn them from feathered villains into neighbors worth tolerating.

It’s a tall order. For decades, gulls have been cast as the bad guys of British seaside towns. They steal chips, dive-bomb tourists, and leave a mess on cars and roofs. In Eyemouth, where the North Sea meets a tight-knit community of about 3,500 people, the tension between humans and herring gulls has boiled over. But Ferguson, hired by the local council in March 2024, believes coexistence isn’t a pipe dream. “Look, they’re not trying to be malicious,” he told me on a chilly morning in early April. “They’re just trying to survive. We’re the ones who built our houses on their cliffs.”

The Birth of a Gull Ranger

The idea sounds almost quaint — a ranger for gulls? But Eyemouth isn’t alone. Coastal communities across the UK, from St Ives to Whitby, are scrambling for solutions as gull populations surge and complaints skyrocket. The difference here? Eyemouth decided to spend money on understanding the problem instead of just culling birds. Ferguson’s salary comes from a partnership between the local council and the Scottish Government, part of a pilot program testing non-lethal management.

So what does a gull ranger actually do? The first few weeks, Ferguson walked every street, mapped every rooftop nest, and talked to every resident who’d listen. He documented 247 active nests in Eyemouth — most on slate roofs and chimney stacks — and noted the timing of egg-laying and fledging. That data is now the foundation of a town-wide plan: replacing fake eggs, installing spikes on problem roofs, and, perhaps most importantly, educating people about not feeding the birds.

“You can’t just remove the gulls and expect the problem to go away,” says Dr. Madeleine Gould, an urban ecologist at the University of Edinburgh who studies human-wildlife conflict. “They’re incredibly intelligent and adaptable. Remove one pair, and another moves in within days. The key is to change the behavior of both the birds and the humans.”

And that’s where the real challenge starts. Because changing human habits — asking people to stop tossing leftover chips onto the pavement, to secure their bin lids, to tolerate noise during nesting season — is a lot harder than shooting a few birds. Especially when climate change is already shifting weather patterns and making coastal ecosystems more unpredictable.

Why Gulls Get a Bad Rap

Let’s be honest: gulls have earned some of their reputation. In 2022, a herring gull in Aberdeen was recorded snatching a chihuahua from a garden. In Brighton, a notorious gull named Steven became a local legend for its relentless theft of ice cream. Headlines scream “Seagull Siege” and “Feathered Menace.” It’s easy to demonize a bird that steals your lunch.

But the science tells a more complicated story. Herring gulls are actually in decline nationally — their populations have dropped by nearly 50% since the 1970s, according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Urban gulls, though, have adapted to human environments, exploiting our waste. They’ve learned that a well-timed swoop on a tourist’s fish and chips yields an easy meal. “We’ve created a generation of gulls that see humans as walking snack dispensers,” says Dr. James Redmayne, a seabird biologist at the British Trust for Ornithology. “That’s not their fault. That’s ours.”

He draws a parallel to severe storms hitting harder in the Atlantic — a symptom of a larger system out of balance. Gulls, like weather, are responding to pressures we’ve created. Rising sea temperatures affect their natural food supply (fish), pushing them into towns. More frequent storms damage their cliff nests, forcing them onto roofs. The conflict is, in many ways, a climate change story wearing feathers.

A Strategy Built on Understanding

“I’m not here to be a gull whisperer,” Ferguson says with a grin. “But I can explain why they do what they do. Once people understand, they stop wanting to hurt them.”

His toolkit includes “egg-oiling” — coating fertile eggs with corn oil to prevent hatching, a humane method that keeps adults nesting but stops the population from growing. He also coordinates with local businesses to install angled roof netting and “spike strips” that deter landing without injuring birds. The goal isn’t eradication; it’s deterrence and tolerance.

One of the more surprising parts of his job? Mediating between neighbors. “You’d be shocked how many arguments start over a gull nest,” he says. “Mrs. Jones wants it gone because of noise. Mr. Smith next door likes watching them. I have to explain the law — gulls are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, so you can’t just destroy a nest during breeding season. Working around that takes diplomacy.”

Eyemouth’s council has already seen results in the first breeding season. Complaints dropped by 30% compared to the previous year, and Ferguson notes that fewer people are resorting to illegal methods like poisoning or shooting. Nationally, the pilot is being watched closely. If it works, other towns may fund their own gull rangers.

What This Means for Coastal Towns

Eyemouth is a microcosm of a larger struggle playing out in coastal communities from Maine to Marseille. Urban wildlife is thriving, but humans aren’t wired to share space with animals that take our food. The gull ranger model — rooted in empathy, data, and non-lethal control — offers a template that could be applied to raccoons in Toronto, or foxes in London. It’s not perfect. Some residents still want the birds gone entirely. But Ferguson argues that “a town without gulls isn’t a seaside town at all. It’d be sterile. Silent. Wrong.”

He points to the future: climate change will only intensify these interactions. As sea levels rise and storms become more frequent, gulls will push further inland. Municipalities that invest now in understanding gull behavior will be better prepared. “We can’t just react every summer,” Ferguson says. “We have to plan for the next fifty years.”

For now, he’s focused on the small wins. A bakery owner who used to throw out stale bread is now bagging it for compost. A school that had kids running from gulls now has a “Gull Awareness Week” with lessons on bird safety. It’s slow, incremental change — the kind that doesn’t make headlines. But it might just be the only way to live with gulls, not just against them.

So the next time you’re in Eyemouth and a gull eyes your sandwich, Euan Ferguson wants you to remember: it’s not a war. It’s a negotiation. And he’s the mediator.