Dear Editor,
As a new Lagos resident, I am more than a little shocked by the out of control seagull population – especially in the old part of town.
So while researching on the web, I found your article from 2008 concerning the local Câmara and their seagull survey (‘Lagos acts to control seagull population’, May 29, 2008 edition)
Can you let me know what the outcome was and where I can go to read more about the steps being taken locally to counter this situation.
I live in the centre of Lagos town, have a roof terrace and can see many pairs of gulls with young chicks on neighbours roofs.
A partial solution to the seagull problem in Lagos would be to substitute imitation eggs in breeding nests on rooftops – a new method that has had a successful trial in the UK.
These birds always return to a successful nest but a failure would cause them to choose a different site to breed next time.
Access to nests would be fairly easy as old town Lagos houses are not high, and the council could commission a local business to make the ‘eggs’ generating employment.
If the scheme worked well the business could sell their products to other towns in Portugal (and abroad) with seagull problems. Good idea?
James Marshall
By email
Editor’s note: Dear James, thank you for your letter and suggestion to the problem. We tried to obtain a comment from Lagos Câmara about this issue and information regarding their study but were unsuccessful at the time the newspaper went to press. We hope to be able to inform readers about this issue in a future edition of the Algarve Resident.
