THUNDER BAY — A casual stroll with his dog ended with an unexpected assault from the air and a trip to the emergency department for a Thunder Bay man.
Brian Charles is sharing his cautionary tale so others keep an eye out for seagulls aggressively protecting their eggs or newly-hatched young from perceived threats.
Charles, a senior who lives on Walkover Street near the Red River Road strip, had taken his little pug for an evening walk near Hammarskjold High School on June 8.
"There's a paved drive that goes to the back of the school. As we were going down the paved area, I got swarmed by a seagull, or I guess, dive-bombed by a seagull. I didn't think much of it. Then I hear squawking overhead, and it was coming right at me again."
He began running, he said, with the dog's leash in his hand.
"I was looking back to see how close it was to me. It was probably four feet above my head. The next thing I knew, I hit the pavement."
Charles received a gash above his eye that took two stitches to close, and a tear in the palm of his hand – caused by a metal part of the leash – that needed eight stitches.
He said many residents of his apartment building are already aware this is the time of year when gulls become hostile, and he expects the same thing is happening in other neighbourhoods around the city, especially areas such as his where there are lots of fast-food restaurants.
"When I went to the hospital the security guard who was there when I checked in mentioned that this happens all the time on Arthur Street. It's very food-centred, lots of restaurants and whatnot."
Since the attack that sent him to the hospital, Charles has already been divebombed again, but this time without injury.
He said there are baby gulls waiting to hatch in the vicinity, and once that happens "there's going to be trouble in the neighbourhood."
A local expert on nuisance animals said the real danger posed by gulls comes from the small claws on their webbed feet.
"They will strike with their feet first, trying to push you down or knock you over, and they hit with such force that it can actually break the skin," said Kym Amonson of Skyline Falconry.
She explained that because there's fecal matter in the nest, "you can get some pretty nasty infections on top of a really good knock to the back of the head. It feels similar to having someone throw a thawed chicken at the back of your head. It can catch you off guard. They can come in pretty quick and pretty ferocious."
Gulls are protected under federal law, but Amonson's services include various ways of deterring adult birds from nesting in specific areas.
She's been attacked in the course of her work.
"I actually did have one hit me in the back, and the claws did manage to break the skin. I was bleeding quite a bit, but thankfully I was able to clean it out right away. But it could have been a lot worse."
Amonson said that during the breeding season, gulls can "go a little bit overboard" in protecting their young, and this can occur a good distance from their actual nesting sites.
"But if you do come in direct contact, or fairly near to their young that have either fallen out of the nest or are nesting on a rooftop, you're going to be in for a really huge battle, and you can end up getting seriously hurt."
She said some eggs may have hatched a few weeks ago, while others are just hatching now.
Skyline Falconry combats the problem proactively by harassing the adult birds to dissuade them from establishing nests.
"We've been dealing with seagulls downtown for almost 10 years now, and we've had huge success . . . We have various birds of prey that we use, and other techniques, whether it be kites, sound systems, pyrotechnics. The birds start to realize that they're not able to rear any young at those locations. They get the hint to kind of move along."
