LIZ JONES: Want to stop the slaughter of wildlife? Then start with seagulls
We are in the midst of an ‘urban gull menace’, apparently. A tortoise called Stig was flipped on his back and eaten. Roo the Yorkshire terrier was pecked to death. Seagulls have reportedly dive-bombed pensioners, and eaten children’s ice creams.
David Cameron has talked of culling the birds. In fact, the cull has already started: in Wiltshire, 600 gull eggs were destroyed. Children on seaside holidays are now being armed with water pistols.
I am often being told off by Scout leaders because my border collies have eaten the boys’ sandwiches: if you don’t want to come across border collies, don’t go walking in the Yorkshire Dales!
![Under attack: Children at the seaside are now being armed with water pistols. Above, Scarborough this week](http://web.archive.org./web/20170714181625/http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/08/02/00/2AF5BA3500000578-3182621-image-a-24_1438471831951.jpg)
Under attack: Children at the seaside are now being armed with water pistols. Above, Scarborough this week
I stayed in a luxury cottage last weekend with a labrador, the most docile, sweet, inoffensive dog you can imagine. He wandered into the garden of the holiday cottage next door, just to say hello. A man came out. ‘Is this your dog?’ ‘He belongs to my sister, yes.’ ‘Well, can you stop him coming in our garden?’ ‘But he’s harmless.’ ‘I don’t mind him, but my wife does, and we have CHILDREN!’
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Why, if you don’t want to come across a dog, would you go on holiday in the New Forest, and stay in a luxury log cabin that is so pet-friendly they provide dog bowls, a dog bed, a map of dog walks, and a special outdoor shower for your pet? If you’re scared of birds, why sit in a harbour eating a burger?
Gull attacks normally only happen at this time of year, when birds are protecting chicks from imagined threats. There are more gulls inshore as fish stocks have plummeted. There is more food waste, everywhere.
The way people treat seagulls is despicable. In Taunton, a baby gull was in the middle of the road, and cars (with children inside, probably) were trying to run it over.
I had to park at a crazy angle, take off my cashmere sweater, and bundle it up before driving it to a wildlife- rescue centre, mums and dads beeping me crossly all the while as they were anxious to load up three trolleys with cheap frozen five-bird roasts at Tesco so they could destroy their broods’ health as well as their morals!
I don't understand the fetishisation of the rare, the annihilation of the common. There are lots of children in the world – plenty! – but that doesn’t stop the single death of a child being a tragedy. If gulls were rare, David Attenborough would be drooling over them, whispering.
I agree with the outrage over the death of Cecil the lion, but at least he had a lovely life, which is more than can be said for our farm animals. Every day, here in the Dales, I see sheep being sent off for halal slaughter: the mums are depressed, the lambs skittish and excited, their tummies shaved due to the new laws on hygiene. Why is there not national outrage over this?
Horrid Hopkins picks another easy target - me
On Monday night, I was a guest on a new TV panel show: If Katie Hopkins Ruled The World. ‘It’s a light-hearted debate, not Question Time!’ the producers assured me. Once on air, the presenter, Mark Dolan, asked what I, as a former glossy magazine editor, thought of Katie’s outfit.
‘Lovely, I like the colour,’ I replied. Katie looked at me, and said: ‘Why are your legs covered in bruises?’ A photo of me without make-up, taken as a selfie for the Daily Mail, was projected onscreen. ‘I think you look better there than you do now,’ Katie said. ‘You don’t look young, you look weird.’
She then called me mentally ill. When she attacked an overweight black woman in the audience, I told her that obesity can be genetic and that the chance of an obese woman returning to a normal weight is one in 124 – and Katie then began crawling on the floor, like a toddler.
The only person she didn’t attack was the gay, male comedian on the panel: she believes she’s a gay icon, but in truth she’s afraid of their powerful lobbyists. I would say she’s like an autistic child with Tourette’s, but that would insult young people with real challenges. Only one thing made me laugh that night: the show will air on TLC. Not heard of it? You are most definitely not alone.
![Katie Hopkins](http://web.archive.org./web/20170714181625/http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/08/02/00/264641AC00000578-3182621-image-m-28_1438472216478.jpg)
![Liz Jones](http://web.archive.org./web/20170714181625/http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/08/02/00/1FFB330000000578-3182621-image-m-30_1438472230357.jpg)
Katie Hopkins, left, called Liz Jones, right, 'mentally ill' when she appeared on her new TV panel show
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