For volunteers at Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center, requests for rescue of injured wild birds, and gulls in particular, are a daily occurrence. This year, far too many of the posts have been grim.
Tangled in fishing lines, string or wire, ingestion of lead, collision with vehicles, attacked by dogs or other natural predators, trapped in buildings, or victims of unknown traumas, the lot of the ubiquitous gull is precarious, and many end up euthanized. From Bellport to Montauk, and Wading River to Orient, their presence in the landscape is a familiar site, rivaled only by their numbers on the rescue call sheet.
Injured gull at Silly Lilly Fishing Station, there for days, unresponsive to people and cannot fly. Injured gull on Dundalk Road in Manorville. Gull with broken wing on Main Street in Center Moriches. Hit by car on Wading River Road, next to Waterdrinker Farm.
Adult gull not moving next to Dune Road condo. Injured in Wildwood State Park. Gull with a broken wing at Center Moriches Yacht Club. Franklin Avenue, Mastic. At William Paca School in Mastic Beach. By the Dollar Tree store. One not moving next to a commercial dumpster. A gull, clipped by a car in parking lot on William Floyd Parkway.
And these were only since July of this year.
Adrienne Gillespie, hospital supervisor at EAWRC, attributes at least some of these injuries to high traffic volume.
“They fly up to get away from speeding cars and get tapped, or fully hit. I see dead or injured gulls on William Floyd all the time,” she said. “They’re also starving and will eat food left in dumpsters, or in parking lots at fast-food places, where drivers hit them.”
EAWRC executive director Kathleen Mulcahy offered additional context.
“The majority of gulls come in from area beaches with unknown injuries. In 2024, we got a total of 160 gulls, 41 of them hit by vehicles,” she said. “Anecdotally, we find we tend to get more shorebirds, especially gulls, in the days after any big, windy storm, such as the one we had in October. We assume it’s because birds get blown off course, become confused, and seek refuge on roads.”
Frequenters of Long Island’s coastal areas, landfills, fast-food parking lots and picnic tables, gulls are omnivorous scavengers that eat anything. A casual observer might think all gulls look alike, but for those who study and admire them, distinct features help identify the varied species within the genus larus.
In “Gulls of Long Island,” Cara Fernandes provides a comprehensive guide to their characteristics on the Quogue Wildlife Refuge homepage.
The common herring gull, with its light-grey back and broad white underside, has a medium build and pink legs. Unlike most animals, it can drink saltwater, ridding its body of salt through salt glands and excreting it through their nostrils.
Smaller, but similar in appearance, the ring-billed gull has yellow legs and a distinct black ring around its bill. They frequent farm fields, where they’ll consume earthworms turned up in recently plowed soil, on beaches, and congregate in parking lots, where they appear to be “doing nothing.”The great black-backed gull, named in part for its impressive size and 5-foot wing span, is the largest gull in the world. Once hunted nearly to extinction, they are found in estuaries—bays, sounds, river mouths—as well as tidal areas near the ocean shoreline or on bare rock. Easily distinguishable from other gulls, locally they are often found near Ponquogue Bridge in Hampton Bays and are protected in New York State.
So-called “laughing gulls” prefer coastal to inland areas and migrate to warmer southern regions in winter. Their dark, black heads, grey body feathers, black-tipped wings and deep-red bill make them easily identifiable from our other gull neighbors.
And, as our neighbors, they would benefit from our help.
“People can help all wild animals by slowing down,” EAWRC’s Mulcahy said. “Especially after big storms.”
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