Ruth Bowyer, of New Road, Brixham, writes:

People who feed gulls like them, but it doesn’t do the gulls any favours. They become dependant and a nuisance, and so are persecuted.

They waste time and energy returning to check if there is food or hang around instead of going off to find their proper food. More and more grow up to compete for limited amounts of food. So I think that asking people not to feed them because of the negative effects on humans won’t work.

I like gulls. I’ve always lived with their sounds. Chicks fall off the surrounding high roofs into my garden and can’t escape because of high walls. I can’t put them back and I don’t know which roof they came from. But the parents feed them until they fledge and can fly away. I have to admit that I have once been tempted into feeding an adolescent chick as its parents were not around and it was starving right in front of my eyes. I weaned it slowly and eventually it was able to fly, but hung around for ages. Very ­difficult. I shan’t do it again for the gulls’ and my sakes.

Every year at breeding time there is a call for a cull and lots of stories about gulls’ aggressive behaviour. A cull would be impossible – a shot would warn all the others, which would fly up, and we might be one gull fewer, but others would just move in no matter what culling method was used. They do calm down when their young have left. Sound familiar?