Seagulls Prefer the Human Touch
A Public Service Announcement
Summary of Scientific Study of Gulls and Food Attraction
May 29, 2023
By Chris Munkholm
As we enter the brief beach season of New England, many of us hope to maximize the pending days of relaxation and salty air. What has become a secondary experience is the company of increasingly aggressive seagulls, who also have their summertime plans: plundering human food. They seem to prefer “junk food”, in the form of hot dogs, French fries, potato chips, pizza and ice cream. We have no reports of seagulls snatching kale or tofu, but who takes healthy food to the beach?
© BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons
During my visits to Singing Beach last summer, I observed three incidents where seagulls successfully dive bombed and captured hot dogs that were inches from a human mouth. A computation based on this small data set estimates 5,000 such attacks at Singing Beach alone. Compound this observation by the aggressive theft of food from beachgoers on Good Harbor Beach, Wingaersheek Beach, Long Beach and so on, we are faced with an inter-species conflict which can no longer be ignored.
University of Exeter Takes a Look
Apparently now a worldwide crisis, serious scientists are starting to study this increasing combative rivalry over food. Researchers at the University of Exeter, Exeter, UK, devised an investigation to better understand attraction factors between seagulls and human food. Working with experimentally naive herring gulls (one wonders how this fascinating condition was established) the researchers tested seagulls’ attraction to four conditions: food touched by humans and not touched by humans, and non-food touched by humans and not touched by humans. One can read experimental details, data, and conclusions in the published paper: Urban herring gulls use human behavioural cues to locate food.
Their summary of results seems germane to the practical problem at hand: Gulls were significantly more likely to peck at a food object that a human had handled than an equally accessible, identical object that had not been handled. This shows that human handling of food attracts the attention of gulls, and that handled food is more attractive than food that gulls have not observed being handled.
Credit: Roy McCree, Unsplash
The researchers also noted that the human touching of non-food made no impact on the gull’s attraction to the test item.
While these results are preliminary, the implications are compelling.
First, the good news: we do not have to worry about seagulls stealing sunglasses, sunscreen, earbuds, or car keys. Even if once grasped in sandy hands.
The bad news: a hot dog, as held by a human hand, is an intensely interesting target and might incite an aggressive response from an observing seagull. As for the seagulls’ fascination with potato chip bags and pizza boxes, are they inferring that the contents were once touched by humans? Or, were the gulls watching from afar as humans consumed the potato chips and pizzas? The gulls’ inclination to intently observe humans was another conclusion of the Exeter study.
Limited Practical Solutions
Are there any defensive maneuvers we can incorporate into our time on the beach? According to a subsequent study by the same research team, engaging in eye contact with seagulls will significantly slow down their approach to one’s blanket and any display of food. This seems like a lot of added tension during a picnic.
Also, this ploy would offer absolutely no help in thwarting a dive-bombing, hot dog snatching gull.
As the situation stands on Singing Beach, consuming a hot dog is now a two-person operation, with one person acting as guard while braced to make a fast intervention. We do not expect the situation will receive attention from the town’s Select Board until property valuations are affected, which is not yet the case.
