Birds Behaving Badly: The Regulation of Seagulls and the Construction of Public Space

Abstract

This article is about the socio-legal construction of one of the least-loved birds in the United Kingdom: the `seagull'. In particular, it is about how the gull has been brought within the realm of the `anti-social', in a context in which urban-nesting gulls (of which there are many in the United Kingdom) are cast as causing a great deal of public nuisance, ranging from noise, aggression, and mess, to attacks, injuries, and stress. The article examines the measures adopted by local authorities to regulate the gull population ± and to regulate people, in the name of regulating gulls ± and shows how a construction of the `seagull' underpins and justifies this regulatory framework. It argues that the story of the regulation of seagulls in the United Kingdom is also a story about the construction of public space, to the point that the measures adopted here challenge the very idea of public space.