One thing keeps seagulls off your food as they 'fly away in seconds'

One thing keeps seagulls off your food as they 'fly away in seconds' View Image

Shouting at seagulls makes them more likely to leave your food alone, research suggests. Researchers at the University of Exeter looked at different ways of deterring the birds from approaching a box of chips on the ground. Testing a total of 61 herring gulls across nine seaside towns in Cornwall, they played either a recording of a male voice shouting the words “No, stay away, that’s my food”, the same voice speaking those words, or the ‘neutral’ birdsong of a robin.

The experiment found nearly half of those gulls exposed to the shouting voice flew away within a minute. Only 15% of the gulls exposed to the speaking male voice flew away, while the rest walked away from the food, still sensing danger.

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