A pensioner who says he was trapped in his home for six days after seagulls repeatedly attacked him and his wife claims "it won't be long" before the birds kill someone.
Roy Pickard, 77, believes children and the elderly are particularly susceptible to a fatal gull attack.
He needed treatment in hospital for cuts to the back of his head after the birds swooped to protect their young outside his home in Knott End, near Morecambe Bay, Lancashire.
"I don’t think it’s going to be long before a child is seriously injured or an elderly person falls trying to get away from a seagull and bangs their head, which could be fatal," the retired paramedic said.
It comes days after a seagull snatched Gizmo the chihuahua from a garden in Paignton, Devon .
Rebecca Hill is desperate to be reunited with her beloved dog.
And now other horror stories are emerging of similar ordeals.
A gull with a 4ft wingspan recently attacked a toddler in a pushchair in Worcester, which is 80 miles from the sea.
"It might sound ridiculous but I believe it won’t be long before a baby becomes the next victim of Britain’s increasingly aggressive seagulls," councillor Roy Amos, a former mayor of the city, told The Sun .
"In Worcester these vicious and brassy flying rats have waged war on residents in recent years.
"People and animals up and down the country are being victimised by these gulls, which have been known to grow as big as a dog."
Councils are encouraging us to be vigilant around seagulls.
But some authorities are splashing out £23,000 each year on gull control officers.
Coun Amos, who is part of the Tory-controlled Worcestershire County Council, added: "Councils are forking out thousands trying to tackle the crisis, like using hi-tech, gull-proof bins and plastic eggs, which seagulls are encouraged to incubate instead of their own, to allow the population to decline naturally.
"But so far, nothing has worked and it has led me to one brutal conclusion: We must kill the bloody things."
The UK has two breeds of seagull - herring gulls and lesser black-backed gulls - which are said to be bigger and more daring than ever.
"Gulls started living in more urban areas because we make it easy for them," Steve Portugal, an expert in animal behaviour at University of London, said.
"What normally stops animals attacking us is fear, so it’s possible that any animal encountering people more often — urban foxes, say — would become bolder."
