Some people react to the unwanted attention of a seagull eyeing a packet of chips or a Cornish pasty by flapping their arms frantically towards the hungry bird, while others quickly retreat to the nearest seaside shelter. But researchers have found that a serious scream—even a relatively quiet one—may be the best way to get rid of a pesky herring gull.
Animal behaviorists from University of Exeter tried to establish the most effective method of countering the feathered threat by placing some of the counters in the place where the seagulls were obliged to find them.
As the seagull approached, they played three recordings. First a man's voice shouts: “No, stay away, this is my food, this my pie!” Then the same voice was heard saying the same words, followed by the “neutral” bird song of a robin.
They tested 61 seagulls in nine seaside towns in Cornwall and found that almost half of the birds exposed to the call flew away within a minute.
Only 15% of the seagulls that heard the male voice speaking flew away, while the rest left the food, still apparently sensing danger. In contrast, 70% of seagulls exposed to robin song stayed put.
The volume of the “screaming” and “talking” voices was the same, meaning the gulls seemed to respond to the acoustic properties of the message rather than the volume.
It's a thought studying tested for the first time whether wild animals not kept in captivity perceive differences in the properties of human voices pronouncing the same sentences at the same volume.
“We found that urban gulls were more vigilant and pecked less at the food container when we played a male voice to them, whether talking or shouting,” he said. Nieltje Bugertbelonging Center for Ecology and Nature Conservation at Exeter's Penrhyn campus in Cornwall.
“But the difference was that the seagulls were more likely to fly away when they shouted, and they were more likely to fly away when they talked. So when trying to scare off a seagull that's trying to steal your food, talking might stop them, but shouting is more effective at getting them to fly away.”
“Usually when someone screams it's scary because it's a loud noise, but in this case the sounds were all the same volume and it was just the way the words were said that were different.
“The gulls seem to pay attention to the way we speak, which we don't think has been seen before in any wild species, only in domesticated species that have been bred around humans for generations, such as dogs, pigs and horses.”
Boogert said the study showed there is no need to harm the birds to scare them away. “They are a special conservation species and this experiment shows that there are peaceful ways to contain them that do not involve physical contact.”
Future research could explore whether a woman's voice has the same effect.
The researchers expected seagulls to be more likely to hunt for chips in more populous cities such as Penzance. In fact, gulls living in or near small, highly touristic locations such as St Ives were more attentive, perhaps because they were more accustomed to foraging for human food.
