"The gull story is bad science."

You've got to be kidding me. You haven't read the science, yet call it bad science. Good lord. Are all science-related news articles required to delve deeply into the scientific method and years of detailed analysis the scientists went through??? This is the news. It's intended for a general audience. A reporter researches a topic and boils down that research into a manageable article for their general audience. Calling something "bad science" when you haven't actually looked at the science is about as arrogant as it gets.