A group of volunteers with a bird rescue organisation almost managed to safely capture the seagull that has been living inside the Bedminster Asda store for the past two weeks last night. But their attempts were unsuccessful and the bird is thought to be still on the loose.
And the story of the young female gull, which was broken by Bristol Live on Tuesday, has gone nationwide, with BBC Radio 1’s Greg James chatting about it to millions of listeners on the breakfast show on Wednesday morning.
The attempt to capture the gull happened on Tuesday evening (June 20), with local volunteers from the Foundation for Feathered Friends charity spending around an hour and a half at the store before it closed at 10pm.
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One of them was Amandine Cook, from Bedminster, who said they managed to lure it towards food left out for it.
“She did come down and was cautiously approaching us. We had food and we had a big net, and the plan was to get her to go for the food and we could catch her in the net. But she’s so scared and she got spooked by the fact there’s so many people in the store, that she flew away again, which was very frustrating.
“It is a tough job and we have spoken to some experts who say that gulls are often too clever to go into a cage trap. Sedating her will be impossible, because no one knows her weight, but one way to get her could be by setting up a location where she feels safe to get food regularly, and getting her confident enough to go there every time, and having a trap or a net there.
“We are worried about her because although it’s a supermarket, she has no easy access to water or food, and is obviously distressed,” she added.
When Bristol Live visited the store on Wednesday morning, the seagull was nowhere to be seen, and one member of staff said the bird will hide itself away in the rafters, and is almost perfectly camouflaged under the vast roof of the store.
One of the issues for the Asda team - and indeed the local volunteers is that the lay-out of the store means the exit doors are not visible from the main area of the store itself, so efforts to coax the bird towards the doors have proved unsuccessful.
A spokesperson for Asda said yesterday that efforts to capture the bird or persuade it to leave the store will continue.
"Our team at Asda Bedminster have attempted to safely remove the bird and to ensure that the store remains clean and tidy throughout. Despite their best efforts, the seagull remains in store and we are now working with specialist contractors to remove the bird,” he said.
