Other, equally ridiculous and implausible explanations are available

However, some experts believe the culling was also partly to protect grouse shooting interests

The 23,500-acre Abbeystead estate was bought in 1980 by a trust "on behalf" of the Duke of Westminster, one of the UK's richest landowners. The duke's Grosvenor Estate manages the Abbeystead estate, which hosts pheasant and grouse shoots.

The government has licensed an annual cull of lesser black-backed gulls on the Abbeystead estate on the Bowland Fells in Lancashire for decades, officially to stop water pollution. The estate was first allowed to cull the gulls in the 1970s on the grounds that droppings were polluting the watercourse. The licence to cull was last renewed by Natural England in 1999. But a former Abbeystead gull surveyor has admitted that the culling has been conducted, in part, to protect the "economy of the shooting estates". The species is known to eat grouse eggs.

But nice to see that the estate managers still believe in good old-fashioned politeness when it comes to being asked for a quote on the situation.

The Grosvenor Estate said: "As we are involved in a dialogue with Natural England together with other land-owners, about the management of Bowland Fells, including the Abbeystead estate, we are not in a position to comment."