There is a street in Salcombe where the seagulls behave themselves.
One bird makes sure of it, and he does not work for free.
Roger patrols the shopfronts of the Devon resort town, seeing off any gull that fancies an unattended pasty.
His fee is prawns. Four a day at £1.40 each, which comes to £5.60 for a shift no human would take.
A chick, a box and a shed
Mark Khoury runs the Salcombe Yawl, the Driftwood Deli and Normans of Salcombe.
About five years ago he found a young gull on the pavement outside.
“He fell out of his nest and I took him under my wing five years ago,” Mark said.
“He’s been here ever since. We put him in a box and put that in a shed at the back.”
Learning to fly did not go smoothly.
“When he started flying he got caught on some seagull wires and some hooks,” Mark said.
“I got the ladder out and brought him down. Hence how we can identify Roger, because he’s got two holes in one foot and one in the other foot.”
Roger carries his own ID.
Four prawns a day, no negotiation
Mark says the bird earns every one of them.
“He goes backwards and forwards to keep all the other seagulls away.”
The rate is fixed. “I usually charge £1.40 per prawn,” Mark said.
“And he gets fed four prawns a day.”
The one street the gulls skip
Salcombe town councillor Steve Frame has noticed the difference, and he is not the only one.
“We have plenty of seagulls and we have our issues as all seaside towns do – but not on this street,” he said.
The town pulls in second-home owners, tourists and the occasional celebrity, which is how it picked up the nickname Chelsea-on-Sea, as reported by Creatorzine.
Most of them arrive expecting the usual coastal shakedown at lunchtime.
On Mark’s stretch, nothing happens.
Roger has also developed a following that has nothing to do with security work.
“The kids come down on holiday and ask for Roger,” Mark said.
Why It Matters
A named animal with a backstory does something no local marketing budget can buy.
Children asking for Roger by name is brand recall, arrived at by accident, attached permanently to three specific shops.
Creators spend years trying to build a character people return for.
Mark got one out of a bird that fell off a roof.
Animal mascots have quietly become one of the most reliable formats in short-form video, partly because they need no script and partly because audiences will follow a recurring character further than they will follow a product.
Roger has the recurring character part covered already.
Herring gulls can live past 20. On current terms that leaves Roger with another 15 years on the job, roughly 22,000 prawns, and no obvious successor.
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