SEAGULLS which attacked elderly residents and frightened a paper boy in an East Coast resort have been culled by council snipers.
Armed with air rifles, offices from East Riding Council shot dead four chicks on the West Hill estate in Bridlington after an 84-year-old resident was left with broken wrists after a swooping attack.
The birds have been nesting in chimney stacks in Remembrance Close, Bridlington, attacking the largely elderly population of the area and scaring away the paper boy who was too frightened of the gulls to deliver newspapers in the area.
Council officers decided they had no option but to kill the chicks which the adults were protecting by attacking anybody they considered a threat.
A spokesman for the council said: "It was not a decision we took lightly, it was something that had to be done.
"We are talking about the safety of human beings."
Some of the gulls have a wing-span as wide as 5ft.
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