Flesh-eating seagulls to be shot by police
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Whale watchers off the coast of Patagonia have been horrified by the sight of seagulls attacking endangered Southern Right whales.
Now Argentinian officials have come up with a way to stop the attacks - the birds are to be shot by police in patrol boats.
Sky News reports that the gulls have started to tear skin and blubber from the backs of whales whenever they come up for air. Their beaks and claws can cause nasty open wounds, which is affecting the behaviour of the whales and also scaring away tourists.
The whales gather off the coast of the Patagonian cit of Puerto Madryn because it is one their prime breeding grounds. However, experts say that they are becoming wary of the bird attacks. Instead of rising up from the water and displaying their tails, they now rise just enough to breathe through their blow holes before descending back into the sea.
Marcelo Bertellotti of the National Patagonia Centre told Sky News: "It's not just that the gulls are attacking the whales, but that they're feeding from them, and this way of feeding is a habit that is growing and becoming more frequent.
"It really worries us because the damage they're doing to the whales is multiplying, especially to infant whales that are born in these waters."
According to Fox News, police riding on motorboats will selectively fire at the seagulls that attack the whales. It's not clear what kind of ammunition they will use, but it's possible they may use rubber bullets.
However environmentalists are critical of the plans as they believes that humans are responsible for the rising seagull population.
They say that it would be more helpful to stop fishermen from dumping scraps which the gulls feed on, and argue that closing a nearby rubbish dump would also help to control the seagull population.
Click on the image below to see some endangered places around the world...
Endangered places around the world
- Amazon Rainforest, South America<p> The Amazon Rainforest spans the border of eight countries (Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana) and is home to 1.4 billion acres of forests and 4,100 miles of rivers. It is being destroyed by expansions in agriculture, construction of roads and illegal logging. Climate change is also driving deforestation and at the current rates, 55 per cent of the rainforests could be gone by 2030. As well as jaguars, pink dolphins, many birds and fish, over 30 million people from indigenous groups live in the Amazon and depend on nature. Many of these people are being moved on by deforestation and as the indigenous people move, we lose valuable knowledge about the Amazon's plants and medicines. <a href="http://www.bespokebrazil.com/" target="_blank">Bespoke Brazil</a> offers tailor-made holidays to the Amazon, which you can visit before more of the invaluable world resource is lost.</p>
- Tsavo East National Park, Kenya<p> Kenya's Tsavo East National Park is a true wilderness and one of the country's oldest parks. Many of its major predators and herbivores have become endangered in the past few decades because of the continuous destruction of their natural habitat and merciless poaching for ivory, skins, horns and bush meat. The park is well-known for its red-dusty elephants and every year a number of these are killed. The Tsavo National Park is located between Nairobi and Mombasa and is a must for photographers for its landscapes and large herds of big mammals.</p>
- Swiss Alps, Switzerland<p> The glaciers in the Swiss Alps have been shrinking at an accelerated rate and scientists predict that if the current weather patterns persist, the glacial Alps will disappear by 2050. The largest alpine glacier, the Aletsch, receded more than 2km over the course of the 20th century and experts say if global warming continues for a decade, in 70 to 100 years only alpine glaciers over 4,000 metres will resist this.</p>
- Great Barrier Reef, Australia<p> The largest coral reef system in the world, the Great Barrier Reef comprises around 2,900 individual coral reefs, 600 continental islands and 300 coral cays. It was awarded World Heritage status in 1981 and is one of the world's great's natural wonders. With over two million visitors each year, there are various initiatives protecting the site including 'no take' zones (so no fishing or shell collecting) and moorings are managed to ensure boats don't damage the reef. The Great Barrier Reef is shrinking and scientists predict 95 per cent of the coral could be lost by 2050. Pollution, irresponsible tourism and global warming are the main threats.</p>
- Venice, Italy<p> One of Italy's most beautiful cities, Venice has been slowly sinking for hundreds of years thanks to its location on the shifting sediments of a lagoon. The tides often flow through the city's stately squares and experts estimate that the city could sink completely in 20 years. In 1900 St Mark's Square flooded seven times and in 1996 this occurred 99 times. Rising sea levels caused by global warming are a huge threat to the city and the government is constructing a floodgate system to block water coming from the Adriatic Sea. This is due to be completed in 2014.</p>
- Tibet, China<p> It may not be an ancient site or natural wonder at stake but the Tibetan language and culture faces a real and present danger, the Dalai Lama has warned. Since being ruled by the Chinese from the 1950s, Tibetan history is slowly being erased with new laws put in place replacing Tibetan language lesson with Chinese Mandarin. The Dalai Lama has challenged refugees living abroad to preserve their culture by keeping the language and traditions alive. The Chinese government's policy to end the nomadic way of life saw thousands of Tibetan nomads relocated from their grasslands to urban dwellings and this is having a disastrous impact on the Tibetan herders' ability to maintain their traditional livelihoods.</p>
- Everglades National Park, Florida<p> America's largest subtropical wilderness, the Everglades National Park is made up of vast, distinct ecosystems home to rare and endangered species including sea turtles, American crocodiles and the Florida panther. The park's diverse habitats are constantly changing and the actions of humans have a strong influence, such as disruptive water management actions and the introduction of non-native species. The Ten Thousand Islands part of the park is the only area on earth where alligators and crocodiles cohabitate but habitat destruction and injury from cars are decreasing numbers. Other threats to the Everglades include fire naturally occurring after lightning storms, rising sea levels caused by global warming and drought. It was placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger from 1993 to 2007 and was back on the list in 2010.</p>
- Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania<p> The ice fields on Africa's highest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro is disappearing and scientists say the snow will be wiped out completely between 2015 and 2020 as a result of global warming. Since 2000, the peak has lost 26 per cent of its icecap and both climate change and deforestation are said to be contributing factors. The loss of the snow would make climbing the mountain, which is popular with untrained non-athletes, even easier but there wouldn't be as much to see from the top.</p>
- Dead Sea, Jordan<p> The lowest point on Earth, the Dead Sea, reaches 50C in the summer and with water levels dropping due to the diversion upstream to meet domestic, agricultural, industrial and touristic demands, the salt waters could disappear completely within the next century. The Dead Sea has already lost over a third of its surface area and annual inflows are predicted to decrease. The fall in the sea level has seen 2,000 collapsing sinkholes dotted around the shores. There are discussions to channel water from the Red Sea to stabilise the level of the Dead Sea but environmental groups are concerned that the canal project could damage the unique natural system of the Dead Sea, including the coral reefs in the Gulf of Aqaba and are calling for better water management, like diverting some of the waters of the Jordan River back to the Dead Sea.</p>
- The Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra, Indonesia<p> Last year, the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra, which consists of three Indonesian national parks on the island of Sumatra (Gunung Leuser National Park, Kerinci Seblat National Park and Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park) was put on the List of World Heritage in Danger. This was to overcome threats posed by poaching, illegal logging, agricultural encroachment and plans to build roads through the rainforest, which is home to 10,000 plant species, more than 200 mammal species including the Sumatran elephant and 580 bird species. The Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2004.</p>
