https://metro.co.uk/2025/07/26/drunk-woman-takes-seagull-home-finding-bird-flu-23758376/

Ryan Prosser

Published July 26, 2025 8:37pm Updated July 26, 2025 8:42pmComments

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A drunk woman picked up and took home a seagull – only to find out later that it had bird flu.

Erin Punton had been on a night out with friends and was returning home when she spotted the bird outside a pub.

Inebriated, the 22-year-old from Ashington, Northumberland, scooped up the seagull and carried it home.

An intoxicated Erin had filmed herself with the seagull tucked under her arm while singing Valerie by Amy Winehouse.

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In the clip, she said: ‘He’s a beauty.

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‘He actually wants to stop in my room and everything but I’ve got nowhere for him.’

The giant seagull appeared unfazed by the sudden attention as it was carried around like royalty.

She woke up the next morning with no recollection of the night before and was shocked to find the bird flapping about in her living room.

After taking the seagull to the vet, she ‘felt sick’ when they told her it had bird flu.

She promptly bleached her entire home after finding out the bird was infected.

What is bird flu?

Bird flu, or avian flu, is an infectious type of influenza that spreads among birds.

It can affect humans in rare cases, by being transmitted through touching infected birds, bedding and preparing or eating sick poultry.

Avian flu symptoms in humans include a very high temperature or feeling hot or shivery, aching muscles and headaches.

The last case of confirmed bird flu was confirmed in captive birds at a premises near Tow Law, Bishop Auckland in County Durham.

Erin said: ‘I saw the bird outside Wetherspoons and managed to pick him up without even a thought.

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‘I don’t even know what made me pick him up.

‘I put him in my sitting room with a blanket. When I woke up in the morning, I’d forgotten and he was just floating around the sitting room.

‘I dropped him off at the vets the next day in a box and was told he had bird flu.

‘I felt sick and bleached my whole house.’

Good news for the gators: Swamp People Star Junior Edwards Dies: ‘He Was One of the Greatest Alligator Hunters,’ Relative Says

Late July’s oppressive heat forecast isn’t normal

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50° “edge of survival” heat hits Turkey for first time in recorded history© IntelliNews

Turkey was hit by a scorching temperature of 50° Celsius for the first time in recorded history on July 25.

“This is climate change, and it’s accelerating,” was the response from weather site Met4Cast.

“This isn’t just a heatwave, It’s the edge of human survival. In low humidity just 30 minutes of exposure risks heat stroke. Increasing humidity shortens that time,” it added.

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The record-shattering temperature was measured at 50.5° Celsius (122.9 degrees Fahrenheit) in Silopi, Sirnak province, near the border with Syria, by the Turkish State Meteorological Service. The highest ever temperature recorded in Europe is the 48.8° Celsius experienced by Sicily, Italy, in August 2021.

As the Turkish government declared disaster zones in two western provinces ravaged by devastating wildfires fanned by strong winds that have already taken the lives of at least 13 people, the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the country faced “a truly great disaster”.

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Tens of thousands of Turks were voluntarily working with hoses and buckets alongside firefighters to contain hundreds of fires as evacuations of residents from threatened localities continued.

The Turkish meteorological service said that on July 25 temperatures exceeded 40° Celsius in 31 provinces. Nationwide temperatures were running six to 12 degrees above seasonal averages.

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Bianet reported that two conscripts of the Iskenderun Naval Infantry Training Battalion in the southern province of Hatay died from dehydration during basic training, while five others were hospitalised.

The tragedy followed the July 23 announcement that 10 forestry and rescue workers had perished while battling wildfires in Turkey’s central Eskisehir province. A change in the direction of the wind left 24 forest workers and volunteer rescue personnel ‘trapped inside a fire’, Turkey’s Agriculture and Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli said.

Ahead of July 23, resident’s of Istanbul, a city of more than 16mn, were advised to stay indoors due to forecast extreme record heat.

New wildfires broke out on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. Images showed flames and smoke billowing into the sky close to high-rise apartment buildings in Antalya, a top tourist draw for local and foreign visitors during the summer months. Homes were evacuated in the city centre and the outlying district of Aksu, DHA reported.

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Antalya Governor Hulusi Sahin said that the fires were under control except for one in Aksu, which was “showing a tendency to grow,” and another in Gazipasa, east of Manavgat, the Associated Press reported.

“The fires were truly disturbing and dangerous, because they occurred in city centres, among houses,” he was reported as saying. “We evacuated some of our homes … There are no deaths or injuries.”

At 46.1° Celsius, the July temperatures in the city of Antalya were the highest registered for the month since records began in 1930.

If such heatwaves and wildfires become the norm in Turkey in years ahead, the future of the country’s tourism industry, vital to the economy in terms of raising FX revenues, could start to look precarious.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said that western province Izmir and northwestern province Bilecik were declared “disaster zones affecting public life”. The classification is one step below the most serious level of “emergency zone”.

In a social media post, he said 311 homes had been destroyed or seriously damaged during the month-long outbreak of wildfires.

Officials said that across the country 27 planes, 105 helicopters and 6,000 ground vehicles were in service fighting the wildfire disaster.

Proposed bear hunt could include areas near Orlando

An Entire Country Has to Be Evacuated Because of Climate Change

The proposal would allow for the killing of nearly 200 black bears over a three-week period in December

Published:  Jul 25, 2025

https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/environment/florida-bear-hunt

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Owen Clarke

Owen Clarke is a freelance outdoor sports writer. He often writes about climbing, but his work also covers motorcycles, long-distance trekking, and environmental conservation. He also authors the dark fantasy series Void Injectionand is the founder of the collaborative writing workshop Dead Foot.

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The Sunshine State is in the process of approving a proposal that would create an annual hunt to cull black bear populations. The three-week hunt, to take place in December, would be the first such event in a decade. A chaotic 2015 hunt was stopped early after over 300 bears were killed in just two days. More than half of the killed bears were females, and a fifth of those were lactating, meaning they likely had cubs depending on them for survival.

The proposal to reintroduce bear hunting this year was given preliminary approval by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) in a May hearing, and is set to be voted on during a final hearing in August. The hunt would take place from December 6 to 28, and hunters would participate via a lottery-style permitting process. The permits would allow for a total of 187 bears to be “harvested” in four hunting zones around the state. Under the FWC proposal, up to six dogs could be used in each hunt, and bears could also be hunted at game feeding stations.

According to the FWC’s Black Bear Management Plan, the state’s black bear population currently sits at approximately 4,050, up from near-extinction in the 1970s. Bear hunting was legal in Florida from the 1930s until 1994, but in the past three decades, the only hunt held was the truncated one in 2015. Currently, Florida is one of only six states in the U.S. that has a resident black bear population but does not allow hunting to manage the population. Of those six states—which also include Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Ohio, and Connecticut—Florida’s bear population is by far the largest.

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“When we look at game species across North America, there’s not a single game species that has gone extinct or come close through regulated hunting,” George Warthen, the agency’s chief conservation officer, told local radio station WUSF. “Instead, we see more money, more attention and a lot more benefits for that animal. And this can be a tough conversation to have. And so the why, for Florida, becomes we’re one of the only states that is not participating in regulated bear hunting in states that have abundant bear populations.”

The timing of the hunt, in December, when most females are in their dens, is reportedly intended to reduce the killing of females and prevent orphaned cubs this time around. The funds that are generated from application and permit sales—a permit will cost $100 for Florida residents and $300 for non-residents—are to be sent to the State Game Trust Fund and used for wildlife conservation.

In an exhaustive Q&A series on the FWC website, the agency addresses a number of concerns about the upcoming potential bear hunt, noting that, although there is no cap on the number of female bears that can be hunted under the provision, the total allotment of 187 bears was specifically chosen because that is the maximum number of female bears that could be killed without resulting in a negative population growth rate. Therefore, even if every single bear killed in the proposed hunt was a female, populations would remain stable, according to the FWC site.

The FWC also addressed the controversial results of the hunt ten years ago, noting changes in the structure this time around. In the previous hunt, 3,776 permits were sold, but the “harvest objective” was only 320 bears. The FWC explained that this system, while still allowing them to keep hunting rates within their target range, inadvertently “put pressure on hunters to harvest the first bear they encountered in the field.” Essentially, 3,776 hunters were all competing to kill bears as quickly as possible, because they all knew that there were only 320 bears that could be hunted before the hunt was closed.

Under the new proposal, the FWC would only sell 187 permits in the first place, so everyone who received a permit could be selective over the three-week period.” This is also the train of thought behind allowing the use of hunting dogs and the killing of bears at game feeding stations. Both tactics, although controversial, would “allow hunters time to be more selective about which bear they take” and avoid targeting females who could be raising cubs.

Black bears were protected under Florida state law until 2012, when scientists determined their populations had recovered enough from the 1970s lows to no longer be threatened by extinction. However bear hunting remains a controversial subject in Florida, particularly after the 2015 cull. A survey the following year—the results of which were included in the FWC proposal—found that residents were in close contention about the issue. Roughly 47 percent of those surveyed supported the idea, and 43 percent opposed it. When the same respondents were asked if they would support bear hunting if it were compatible with maintaining healthy bear numbers, however, those in favor increased to 62 percent.

Still, the FWC website received over 13,000 comments about the potential 2025 bear hunt, and around three-quarters of them were opposed to the idea. The agency’s position is that, sooner or later, the growing bear population is going to have to be checked. “While all wildlife species, theoretically, will reach some population level that triggers a decline, black bear populations have not reached levels where self-regulation has been exhibited anywhere in North America,” the FWC says. “Rather, as bear numbers reach high enough levels, human presence can begin to influence [them].”

Florida reports an average of 191 bears are already killed each year as a result of human interaction—such as vehicle strikes, required euthanization due to habituation, and illegal hunting. “Once there are enough bears in suitable habitats, bear presence will increase in marginal habitats (e.g., neighborhoods), which increases the likelihood of human-bear conflicts and the subsequent risk to public safety, as well as safety for the bears.”

The number of bear-human interactions in Florida has increased dramatically since the turn of the century, as both bear and human populations have climbed. The first fatal bear attack in state history occurred last year. (An 89-year-old man and his dog were killed near Naples.)

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