That gull spends its day over a beach, picking its moment and ruining somebody's afternoon from a great height. People spend their annual leave on that week — towels, sunbeds, a lunch carried up from the car — and get a coat of paint for it. I hunt them. Now that is what you call a public service, and not one holidaymaker has ever thanked me. ⋀
Let us be clear about what you are running up there. You do not hunt my cousins for the people on the sand. You hunt them for three chicks in a pine. I make one delivery, from a great height, onto a crowd who will be telling the story all winter. Nobody is hurt. Nobody's holiday ends. Ask them which of us they would rather have overhead.
You are right that the eagle is not moved by civic feeling, and I never said it was — I said the beach is better off, and it is. As for what they would rather have overhead: they cannot see me at all, and they can see you coming. That is the whole difference between a predator and a nuisance. ⋀