A water company’s bid to to scare seagulls away from a beach on the south coast in a bid to reduce “bird pollution” has been suspended following a local outcry.

Using hawks, falconers were employed by Southern Water for the task, which has previously been effectively used at airports, in a bid to stop the birds from defecating onto the beach and into the sea.

But after witnessing herring gulls – a protected species – in an apparent state of distress, people on Worthing beach reportedly called the police after seeing the falconers patrolling it.

“I noticed a group of three men, one of whom had a hawk on his arm,” witness Tana Jackson told The Argus newspaper, adding that she had called the police. “Another man was walking on the beach with another hawk on his arm waving it up and down making the bird flap its wings. The seagulls in the near vicinity were extremely distressed and were flying around and squawking in a terrible state.

“He told me he was from Southern Water and that they had hired the men with the birds of prey in order to move the seagulls along from the Heene Road beach as the water was being polluted with bird poop. I asked him if he was stupid as the beach and the sea are the natural habitat of the seagulls.”

The UK's top birds 2018 Show all 10 1 /10 The UK's top birds 2018 The UK's top birds 2018 10. Chaffinch Down one place on last year. Birdwatch has released this year's rankings for the most frequently spotted birds in the UK. Results were collected from 420,489 British birdspotters Getty The UK's top birds 2018 9. Long-tailed tit Up one place on last year Getty The UK's top birds 2018 8. Robin Redbreast Down one place on last year Getty The UK's top birds 2018 7. Great Tit Up one place on last year Getty The UK's top birds 2018 6. Goldfinch In the same place as last year Pierre Dalous The UK's top birds 2018 5. Woodpigeon In the same place as last year Getty The UK's top birds 2018 4. Blackbird Down one place on last year Getty The UK's top birds 2018 3. Blue tit Up one place on last year Getty The UK's top birds 2018 2. Starling In the same place as last year Getty The UK's top birds 2018 1. House sparrow In the same place as last year Getty

She added: “I believe that this incident is the most stupid act I have ever witnessed in my entire life. You simply could not make this up.”

Last week Southern Water was fined a record £126m for “shocking” failures which led to sewage and wastewater polluting rivers and the sea on the south coast. Regulator Ofwat found the company had failed to invest properly in infrastructure and had not operated a number of sewage treatment works properly, resulting in equipment failure and wastewater spills.

The Environment Agency is currently pursuing a criminal investigation into the company’s activities.

The firm told The Independent the trial to deter the seagulls with hawks has been suspended.

Experts also cast doubt on whether the plan would have worked anyway.

“It doesn’t strike me as very likely the hawks would be able to deter the gulls for long enough, or over a large enough area of sea, to be an effective solution,” Mark Mallalieu, the recorder for the Sussex Ornithological Society, told The Independent. “The use of hawks to deter unwanted birds, on airfields for example, is very well tried and tested and proven, so the basic technique can be effective in the right circumstances. But I’d be surprised if it’d be effective in this situation.

“Gulls are particularly aggressive birds, so they’d have to find out whether the birds were sufficiently scared by the hawks rather than provoked by them.”

Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events

He added: “If they were defecating in a water treatment works I could understand it, but stopping them defecating in the sea sounds slightly far-fetched to me.”

To disturb a protected species you need a licence, he said.

Ornithological consultant David Campbell, who runs website Worthing Birding told The Independent it was “madness” Southern Water considers bird faeces in this context pollution.

He said: “We have removed all but a smidgen of coastal green space in the area, and pollute it with noise, fumes, chemicals and waste. Yet, when birds whose natural population is suffering - placing them on the UK's Red List of conservation concern - such as herring and lesser black-backed gull, try to eek out an existence alongside us, we see fit to distress them during the breeding season, when their young are soon to fledge.

“It is frightening how intolerant we can be of wildlife when it presents the slightest inconvenience to our lives, considering the impact we have on a local and global scale. We need to become better at self-evaluation as a species on this planet we share, and in seeing a wider perspective.”

He added: “In any case, the notion that a wild animal's waste can be considered pollution in this context is simply hysterical madness.”

The attempt to remove the gulls from Worthing beach in an effort to clean up the sea comes as nearby beaches in Brighton and Hove have recently been awarded Blue Flag status for being among the country’s cleanest.

Citing a 2003 study published in the Journal of Applied Microbiology, which suggested gull faeces could be a major contributor of E coli, a Southern Water spokesperson said the use of a falconer was “part of our ongoing bathing water enhancement programme, which the public very much supports, and our aim is to tackle all the different pollution sources – sewage, litter, agricultural and birds. We have demonstrable evidence that bird pollution can affect the quality of bathing water.”

They added: “The bird of prey used is tethered to a falconer’s arm, and is there to act as a positive visual deterrent.