Seagulls protected killed by quads and cars in the Royal Albatross Center car park

WARNING: Some may find the images in the story distressing.

About 30 protected red-billed gulls were killed as two cars and an ATV roamed the Royal Albatross Center parking lot for about three hours early this morning, says Otago Peninsula Trust ecotourism manager Hoani Langsbury.

The incident, which lasted from about 1 a.m. to 4:30 a.m., was caught on closed-circuit television and had been reported to police, Langsbury said.

Distressed center staff arrived this morning to find dead birds, empty beer bottles and large tire marks throughout the parking lot, he said.

Security footage was reviewed and clutter cleaned up before visitors arrived at 10am.

At this stage of the gulls’ nightly breeding season, as many as 1,000 chicks congregated in the parking lot and it was just a matter of luck that no more birds died, Langsbury said.

The gull colony at Taiaroa Head had grown significantly in the last 10 years, increasing by 1000 pairs, and was the only red-billed gull colony in New Zealand that was not declining.

Whether the drivers were intentionally targeting protected species or not, the entire cape was a colony of seabirds, he said.

Years of conservation work supported not just the northern Dunedin royal albatross and red-billed gulls, but more than 20 species of seabirds, he said.

Conservation Department Ranger Colin Facer said that driving and killing adult birds and chicks is “disoriented” and “gutsless.”

Red-billed gulls were more threatened than the northern royal albatrosses that breed on the peninsula, he said.

Those responsible could be prosecuted under the Wildlife Act, he said.