Signs warning not to leave food, move nests or treat eggs with oil; the municipality of Alkmaar is doing everything it can to prevent seagull nuisance. Nature organizations think differently and believe that you should leave the birds alone. They went to court.
Alkmaar has been struggling with seagull nuisance and now that the breeding season is in full swing, all kinds of measures are being taken to limit the nuisance. In the event of extreme nuisance, the municipality has a multi-year exemption to move the nests of the herring gull, the common gull and the lesser black-backed gull. The eggs with . may also be used in the latter species oil are sprayed so that they do not come out. Incidentally, this only happens if an ecologist has also established this.
According to Rob Struyk of the Vogelwerkgroep Alkmaar, it makes no sense at all. “If the eggs don’t hatch, the gull just stays where it is and you keep noise nuisance. Gulls don’t move as quickly and often return to their old place. All those actions of recent years have not helped because the gull population has not decreased .”
Tolerated roofs
Struyk wants to emphasize that he understands that people experience nuisance from the screeching of the seagulls. “It is personal to everyone, some people are also awakened by a Cuckoo or a cooing Collared Dove, but seagulls make noise, so we fully understand that. It’s about the way you do something about it.”
Because according to him there are other solutions that are much better. A good example of this can be found at the industrial estate in Oudorp. The municipality has designated two roofs where the gull can nest in peace. “Two ‘tolerated roofs’ is a good start, but far too little in Alkmaar. Gulls also live to be thirty to forty years old and are home-steady. So you have to arrange this for the long term.”
NH Nieuws and Rob Struyk of the Vogelwerkgroep Alkmaar went to the industrial estate in Oudorp to look for breeding gulls (text continues below the video)
The Fauna Protection Foundation from Renkum and the Vogelwerkgroep from Alkmaar want the municipality to leave the seagulls alone and have gone to court. Initially, the two nature organizations objected to the exemption granted by the province of Noord-Holland. That objection will not be dealt with until 9 June, which is, according to Struyk, rather late. “The breeding season is already in full swing and once that objection has been settled, it will of course not be of much use. We want the judge to withdraw the exemption now.”
Precedent
And that is important, according to Struyk, because he fears that this exemption could possibly be rolled out in other places where seagulls are a nuisance. “This concerns places such as Haarlem, Zandvoort, Zaanstad and Leiden. This sets a very serious precedent. We need to have more understanding for the seagulls. They now belong in the city, all those measures will not change anything.”
The judge will rule next week.