Let me just say before any of you are tempted to tuck into some avian delicacy, I wouldn't. A 'Health Warning' has been placed onto the eggs of the Mediterranean gull, as they have not been approved for human consumption.

"I'm distraught, really. To see the taking of hundreds and hundreds of eggs from an important colony is quite sickening," - Paul Morton, founder of the Birds of Poole Harbour charity.

The shift from legal to illegal

As a practice for some time now, coinciding with the RSPB's Amber protective status of the species, Natural England has stopped issuing licenses to collectors in order for the species to recover (the gull population in the harbour has fallen 70% since 2008). Only 25 people were licensed in 2009 and now in 2016, 18 people hold licenses to collect black-headed gull eggs. Potentially good news, the tradition is dying off, well not so much. When there is demand there will always be driver of supply, and now a potential black market has opened up for the trade. Cases of this nature have seen some success in the UK with previous convictions, but there have also been many that simply got away with it. The UK is supposedly an ambassador for wildlife protection, and viewing wildlife crime as a serious offence was one of the key goals of the London Declaration in 2014, we can preach to other countries all we like but are we seeing changes in our own conviction rates and do judges and criminals in the UK see poaching as a serious crime?

Author note: For me this story brings something else to think about. It is easy to assume that these issues are only occurring in far off lands with differing attitudes to wildlife protection and environmental issues. But this story proves that this not the case. Opportunists that exploit wildlife can be found all over the globe. This may be one localized occurrence involving perhaps not such an compelling species (well your own opinion) as opposed to huge international crime syndicates which are often focused on, but, both are equally as important to the individual species and ecological damage done. There are many layers to the solution and as a collective we must all work together, in legislation, capacity building and education to change the world and protect the environment.