Greedy gulls decide what to eat by watching people -- new research

• These birds’ pilfering of food knows no bounds, and no one is safe from one of their thieving attacks.
• As a scientist interested in animal cognition, I’m fascinated by the intelligent behaviour that allows gulls to successfully forage human foods.
• The ability to compare objects and identify whether they are identical implies a higher cognitive ability than object tracking alone.

Quick learners

• We sat on the sand and held a third crisp packet that matched the colour of either one of the packets on the ground.
• We then recorded the gulls’ response to see if, as hypothesised, they would choose the crisp packet that matched the colour of the one in our hand.
• Of the gulls that pecked at the crisp packets, nearly all (95%) did so to the crisp packet that colour-matched the one we were holding.

Wide behavioural repertoire

• That means this behaviour cannot have come from an innate ability resulting from co-evolution or an extended period of living alongside humans.
• Rather, it must be the result of a broader, more general behavioural repertoire.
• It seems that herring gulls are an intelligent and versatile predator that has successfully adapted to urban environments due to their observational skills and behavioural flexibility.
• What is clear, though, is that we can’t rely solely on signs insisting that people “do not feed the birds”.