Injured gull dies after being struck by car in Moncton

An Iceland gull has died after being seriously injured when a vehicle plowed through a flock of birds in a Moncton-area parking lot last week.

Pam Novak, the director of the Atlantic Wildlife Institute, received a call that someone saw a car drive through a flock in a parking lot in the Moncton area and a bird was left behind afterwards.

"Here is this beautiful gull minding its own business trying to survive the winter and someone decides to get their kicks and drive through a flock of them to see what can happen," Novak said.

"These are the types of calls we get that are so utterly frustrating, so unnecessary, so cruel."

The Iceland gulls arrive in the area during the winter months. Novak said they breed thousands of kilometres away in the high arctic. She said it was likely preparing to return back with its flock.

The gull died last night

"It was definitely showing signs of trauma, concussion … the mobility was gone."

"It's extremely cruel and something that doesn't need to happen this bird just should not have been here," she said.

The Iceland gull was one of the many animals that the Cookville-based institute has been working with.

With spring around the corner, some of the other animals at the wildlife institute are beginning to wake up from their winter slumber.

"The woodchucks are up and about and our little sleepy bears are starting to move around," she said.

See some of the animals at the Atlantic Wildlife Institute