RJ Hamster
Transport for London is trapping birds, and we need…
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Transport for London is trapping birds, and we need your help!
MAY 18READ IN APP
Two gulls. Four days. Tangled alive in bird netting at Northfields Station while commuters passed below and locals watched, helpless, from the street.This is not a deterrent. This is a death trap, and Transport for London installed it.
Resident, Anthony Percival, near Northfields Station noticed the gulls caught in the netting and reported it. Then he waited. And waited. For over four days, the birds hung there, alive, struggling, fighting with everything they had.
“I was just amazed that it was able to keep doing it and keep trying for so long really,” one local said.
“We were really rooting for him at the end. It was quite emotional really, especially seeing him rescued, I couldn’t believe it.”
Image taken by Anthony Percival who watched Gilbert for days.
The community named one of the gulls Gilbert. They willed him on. They watched rescuers from The Swan Sanctuary in Shepperton finally reach him, but it was too late for his companion, who died before help arrived. Gilbert was rescued, but succumbed to his injuries three days later.
Gilbert did not have to die. Neither did his friend.
The Swan Sanctuary, the people who actually showed up to help, were unequivocal: bird netting is “not a deterrent for birds, it’s an expensive death trap.”
They are right. Bird netting does not stop birds roosting. It snags them. It traps them. It leaves them to exhaust themselves and die slowly in full public view, while the organisation responsible does nothing for days on end.
TfL knew this netting was there. TfL is responsible for what happened to Gilbert.
Swan Sanctuary rescuing Gilbert, taken by Anthony Percival.
What makes this so enraging is that there is no need for any of it. Effective, genuinely humane alternatives exist right now. Organisations like Humane Wildlife Solutions specialise in exactly this, deterrents that work without trapping, injuring, or killing a single animal.
London’s gulls, pigeons, starlings, they are not pests to be managed away. They are part of the city. They have adapted to live alongside us, making their lives in the spaces we leave them. Gilbert made his life at Northfields Station. He did not deserve to die, tangled in wire, while days ticked by.
We owe it to him, and to every bird that comes after him , to make sure this never happens again.
Sign the petition. Tell TfL to remove the netting from Northfields Station immediately, and to commit to working with humane wildlife specialists.
Share this. Say his name. Make Gilbert’s death mean something.
Pick up one of our lovely pigeon pin badges and help support the fight for British wildlife. From campaigning against bird netting and exposing the shooting industry, to ending hunting with hounds and the badger cull, every part of our work is powered by public support. We receive no government funding and rely entirely on people like you to keep going.
