Herring gulls have seemingly been disappearing from a coastal town in Wales (Picture: PA)
Herring gulls have disappeared in large numbers from a seaside town amid fears of a bird flu outbreak.
Their calls are usually a constant background noise in Barmouth, North Wales, but the town is now ‘eerily quiet’.
Bird flu is on the rise across the UK and its thought it may be behind the apparent collapse in the area’s bird population.
Rob Triggs, who represents the town on Gwynedd council, said: ‘The herring gulls are my alarm clock in the summer – as soon as the sun comes up at 04:30, they get me up to take the dogs out.
‘There’s an old quarry face looking down on the town, and there’d normally be hundreds roosting there, but now there’s nothing.
‘The town feels quite eerie – when we had a sunny day recently, there were loads of visitors here, they dropped chips, and there were no gulls to pick them up.’
Fishermen have also raised concerns after spotting dead birds on the shoreline near to the town.
Mr Triggs added: ‘We don’t really know what’s happening. We are still seeing some herring gulls on the beaches, but nothing like the numbers you’d expect.
Residents of Barmouth in North Wales have noticed a visible decline in the local bird population (Picture: Getty/iStockphoto)
‘It would be useful to get some feedback from the authorities to know what’s going on.’
Dr Rachel Taylor, senior ecologist at conservation charity British Trust for Ornithology, said aviation flu is possibly to blame.
Dr Taylor said: ‘It’s very hard to tell what is happening with herring gulls in Barmouth or elsewhere in Wales.
‘But there is an obvious candidate for any decline this year, because we’ve had unexpectedly extended and major outbreaks of avian flu viruses in seabirds generally.
‘So it’s entirely possible that we’re losing herring gulls as a result of avian flu infections.’
Dr Taylor said national avian flu monitoring is focussed on outbreaks in domestic birds such as chickens – and not wild birds.
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She said: ‘There certainly have been cases identified in herring gulls and other wild bird species, but there’s not enough information, and we can’t use it to understand an outbreak in wild birds.’
A Welsh government spokesperson said: ‘We continue to work with Natural Resources Wales and Public Health Wales to monitor and respond to the threat of Avian Influenza to our wild birds.
‘This includes having developed, with Defra (the UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) a mitigation strategy for outbreaks in wild birds.
‘We are also engaging with the other UK government administrations to monitor the domestic and international picture and share best practice, expertise and learning from the recent outbreaks in Scotland and England, recognising the migratory and dispersive behaviours of wild birds.’
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A coastal community in Wales says bird seem to be disappearing from the area.