Vast costs of tackling seagull menace in Aberdeenshire revealed
Council bosses spent more than £200,000 last year on a vast array of measures including egg and nest removal to deter what some feel is an airborne menace.
Huge sums of public money are still being spent in Aberdeenshire to scare away nuisance seagulls by deploying hawks, bird netting and even scarecrows, The P&J can reveal.
New data reveals local authority chiefs spent more than £200,000 in 2025 alone on deterrence.
The latest figures come against the backdrop of a political row sparked by stricter licensing rules for culling the birds which even led to an emergency summit.
Public agency NatureScot says it has made it more difficult to remove eggs and nests with ease due to concerns over gull numbers declining.
Those against tightening the licenses say troublesome gulls are causing more problems than ever in urban areas across the Highlands, Moray, and Aberdeenshire.
Seagulls might not sound like a topic you would expect to become the subject of heated political debate in Holyrood.
But last year, it remarkably led to an alleged physical altercation which ended up costing a Scottish Government minister his job.
Former Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross claimed he was “physically assaulted” by the SNP’s Jamie Hepburn following a row over gulls in the chamber.
And the Conservatives claim an inability to get to grips with the problem is leading to mounting costs for local authorities, weeks before the upcoming election.
How much was spent?
New figures, seen by The P&J, show Aberdeenshire Council spent more than £112,000 on egg and nest removal alone last year.
Meanwhile, £54,432 in cash went towards hawks intended to chase seagulls away.
A total of £35,134 was spent on bird netting across the region, and there were additional costs of £1,440 for scarecrows.
Aberdeenshire Council’s overall bill for seagull deterrence between 2021 and 2025 was £778,371.
Elsewhere, Moray Council deployed laser disturbance and sonic scarer devices to disturb nuisance seagulls.
These have been placed in “gull proof” bins used by the local authority.
In 2024-25, Moray spent more than £105,000 removing nests and eggs which were on houses or corporate buildings owned by the council.
The rise in the number of seagulls in Elgin came up when readers spoke to us about their concerns at The P&J’s local roadshow.
Highland Council was unable to say how much had been spent on culling birds, since this is included among wider pest control costs.
In April last year, The P&J reported on the creative measures being taken in Inverness to deter gulls.
Signs in the Highland capital warn residents not to feed the birds.
Inverness Bid, an organisation representing businesses in the city, said the number of seagulls being culled each year had decreased dramatically.
It was warned the local population could increase by 7% each year without intervention.
On April 8, The P&J reported that an Easter egg hunt in Inverness city centre was blighted by “coordinated” swooping attacks from gulls.
In July last year, we revealed that a Banff plumber was unable to work for two months and missed his own daughter’s wedding celebration following an attack.
“The SNP refuse to treat this as a matter of personal safety,” said Conservative candidate Tim Eagle, standing in Moray at the Holyrood election.
“The so-called seagull summit in October was a sham, googly eyes and all.
“Our MSP inboxes often had issues of people being attacked, usually in open and rubbish-free spaces.”
He added: “It’s a headache for councils who are already facing multimillion-pound black holes in their budgets as things stand.”
Karen Adam, standing for the SNP in Banffshire and Buchan Coast, held meetings to discuss the problem with local residents during her previous term as an MSP.
“Seagulls are a serious issue here and people deserve actual solutions, not political soundbites from the Tories,” she told The P&J.
“We need a humane approach to controlling seagull numbers which is why I convened a public meeting on the issue within the first few months of being elected and set up a seagull working group with officers from Aberdeenshire and Moray councils.
“While the Tories say anything for a headline, I’ll keep working with Scottish Government ministers and the council on this matter.”
[Source: Press and Journal]
