To this day I still can’t understand how this fella survived the ordeal but it did. Again it made repeated appearances in the paper and it is understood that it ended up on the River Humber with the crossbow bow still intact. A testament to the resilience of Mother Nature…

A SCARBOROUGH seagull which was horrifically injured when a crossbow bolt was impaled through its head is defying the odds by managing to survive.

It has regularly been spotted in the Old Town over the past month.

A second bird with a similar injury but different bolt was featured on the front page of the Evening News on May 11.

At the time, we reported that two seagulls were said to have been shot and wounded. The incident sparked fears that someone was prowling the streets with a loaded crossbow taking pot shots at the town’s wildlife.

The bird and its mate can be regularly seen together on the roof of a garden shed, just by the side of Dog and Duck steps, and it is apparently unfazed by its injury.

The attacks made international headlines last month and residents are surprised that it can still be seen flying in the area off Burr Bank.

Scarborough’s RSPCA inspector, Geoff Edmond, still regularly checks on it and is surprised that it has managed to survive so long. He said: “I’ve been down there on a regular basis and it’s never left the area. It’s flying and behaving normally. It’s managing to survive but it doesn’t take away the fact that it shouldn’t have happened.”

Mr Edmond added that it was lucky the wound had not become infected and, so far, the gull had eluded all attempts to catch it so that the injury could be assessed and treated.

When the original photograph was compared with the ones taken earlier this week it was noticed that the bolt was different – revealing that it was a different bird. It is believed that another gull was also attacked by the suspect last month and it suffered an injured wing.

Mr Edmond added: “At the time of the injury there were two birds reported but I never managed to substantiate that there were two birds.”

Graham Rhodes, who runs the Aakschipper Gallery on the West Pier, was shocked when he first spotted the injured bird while walking his dog last month.

He said he was surprised that it had survived so long. “I think the general feeling in the Old Town is good on it but the underlying fact is there is someone going around with a crossbow. How many times did he miss?”

The 60-year-old, who lives off Castlegate, added that he had been surprised by the amount of worldwide attention that the bird had generated.

He said: “After the Evening News published it, it appeared in the Daily Mail but the big surprise was it being picked up by Australian and American news.”

From the Scarborough Evening News on Friday, June 11, 2010.