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Herring Gulls given 'Red Status' as a threatened species by RSPB |
| Posted: Jun 07 2009 >> Back |
The Herring Gull - facts and figures
If you go to the Herring Gull page on the RSPB (The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) website, you'll find all kinds of information including videos and call sounds.
Here's a quick breakdown:
- Latin name: Larus argentatus
- Family: Gulls (Laridae)
- Habitat: Herring Gulls are large, noisy gulls found around our coasts and sometimes inland.
- Adults: Older birds have light grey backs, white under parts, and black wing tips with white 'mirrors'.
- Legs: Pink with webbed feet.
- Bill: Heavy, slightly hooked and marked with a red spot.
- Juveniles: Young birds are mottled brown.
Herring Gulls have suffered moderate declines over the past 25 years and over half of their UK breeding population is confined to fewer than ten sites. Breeding numbers are approx. 139,309 pairs in the UK.
Red Status
Birds in the UK are split into 3 levels of conservation importance
- Red
- Amber
- Green
Herring Gulls are in the same list as the Bittern, Corncrake, Arctic Skua and Song Thrush. 52 species in all are on the Red Status list at the moment. You can read more on the pdf available from the RSPB (under Downloads on right side of website page).
Red Status is only allocated to birds that need urgent and immediate action to prevent them from further decline.
Red list criteria
- Globally threatened.
- Historical population decline in UK during 1800–1995.
- Severe (at least 50%) decline in UK breeding population over last 25 years, or longer-term period (the entire period used for assessments since the first BoCC review, starting in 1969).
- Severe (at least 50%) contraction of UK breeding range over last 25 years, or the longer-term period.
What do you think about Herring Gulls now you now the above?
Tell me about it on the ilovelooe.co.uk forums or leave a comment below.
Comments
| It would not be the coast if we did not have our gulls | By Unknown on Jun 09 2009 at 8:23 PM |
| Personally I quite like Sea gulls, it's a nice reminder everyday that I am luckly enough to be living near the coast, fact of life is gulls and coast go together, always have and always will, they are nature's little scavangers and clean up all the mess left from the fishing boats at sea and whatever else is there, if it was not for them, then what waste left from the fishing boats would be brought in on to our beach's. Truthfully we are the ones that have moved into their space, not the other way around, so we must accept them for what they are and live together in harmony, and if you do not like gulls you could always move inland. | |
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