Progress on planned actions by the Scottish Government regarding Urban Gulls: EIR release

Information requested

You kindly wrote to me in November of last year setting out a number of planned actions that Scottish Government committed to carry out regarding Urban Gulls.

I would like to ascertain what progress has been made on each of these actions and in particular the Licensing mechanisms that will be implemented for the 2026 breeding season that is a matter of weeks away.

Response

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

Request for an update on planned actions by the Scottish Government regarding Urban Gulls

I have provided an update below on the actions outlined in our previous response of 24 November 2025 (202500493727):

Roundtables: Following the Gull Summit held in Inverness last year, NatureScot have hosted four roundtable events in Irvine, Dumfries, Eyemouth and Fraserburgh. These roundtables have now concluded, and information gathered will be utilised to develop local management approaches, best practice and further guidance.

Funding: Financial support is being provided to key local authorities to further develop area-based management, prioritised in areas that are causing the greatest concern. While some areas already have gull management approaches in place, the funding is aimed at developing these and supporting people and gulls living together.

NatureScot has written to all 32 Local Authorities updating them on funding of £100,000 being made available to facilitate an area based management for gulls.

NatureScot has prioritised the funding, in the first instance, to areas where they have been involved in significant casework whether through wider scale licensing requests or advice on mitigation measures.

As a first tranche the local authorities prioritised for funding included Moray Council and Highland Council and it is likely that funding to each local authority will be in the region of £10,000. Arrangements have already been made to pay £10,000 to Highland Council. The £100,000 funding does not include additional costs for other elements of the action plan, such as for Best Practice Guidance, survey work, and for the proposed four regional roundtables, which are being resourced by NatureScot separately.

The £100,000 funding does not include additional costs for other elements of the action plan, such as for Best Practice Guidance, survey work, and for the proposed four regional roundtables, which are being resourced by NatureScot separately.

With regard to the Highland Council specifically, further funding of £10,000 from NatureScot has also been paid to Highland Council as part of the Inverness Gull Management Pilot.

Gull Population Data: NatureScot is developing gull survey methods at national and regional levels. This includes specific data gathering work with the Highland Council in Inverness as part of the pilot project there. Furthermore, the recent Natural Environment Bill included provisions for NatureScot to report on some gull species populations every five years. This will aid in developing and implementing national and local plans, management approaches and provide detailed evidence to support licensing decisions.

Best Practice: Information collected from the regional roundtables is currently being collated, this information will be used to pull together and develop a suite of ‘Best Practice’ guidance covering a range of factors influencing gull utilisation and behaviours in urban environments.

National Gull Forum: During the roundtable events, discussions were had around developing local or regional forums involving local authorities, community councils, non-government organisations, and those involved in managing impacts from the area. The first National Gull Forum will take place in early April.

National Awareness Campaign: The need for a national awareness campaign to encourage people not to feed gulls and carry out proper waste management was highlighted as a key action from last autumn’s Gull Summit and through the regional roundtables that were held throughout January and February.

NatureScot began developing the awareness campaign in November, and it was launched on 5 March 2026. As part of this, NatureScot currently have a three-week radio advertising campaign running across Bauer network stations as well as a three-week social media advertising campaign running across Meta (Facebook and Instagram) on both platforms.

NatureScot are targeting people living and working in coastal towns and cities where gulls are known to cause issues.

The campaign focuses on encouraging behaviour-change in three key areas:

• not feeding gulls;
• securing waste / not littering;
• gull-proofing homes

As well as advertising, we have launched a new web page containing resources for councils, businesses, partners, and local communities to use to help spread awareness more widely.

The page contains downloadable social media tiles and posters alongside our gull management guidelines. See https://www.nature.scot/plants-animals-and-fungi/birds/seabirds-and shorebirds/gulls/resources-promote-gull-awareness.

We have developed these resources to help everyone across Scotland raise awareness of the simple steps that can be taken to help prevent gull issues.

Licensing: NatureScot continues to develop licensing policy and procedure in relation to area-based licenses and recognises that each local authority will be experiencing different impacts in different towns and cities in relation to impacts and gull numbers. Therefore, it is imperative that those local authorities looking to utilise area-based licences register their interest by contacting NatureScot.

Area-Based Licensing Approach: NatureScot are ready to process licence application coordinated through The Highland Council for locations we agree are highly likely to pose a risk to public health or safety in advance of the 2026 nesting season such as Raigmore Hospital, schools, emergency service properties, care homes. You may wish to contact NatureScot directly to request further information on this. NatureScot’s licensing Team email is licensing@nature.scot.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.