Seagulls less likely to steal food if you stare at them, study shows

Because who among us hasn't been burned by a gull in the past?

It's summer in Ireland and that can only mean one thing. No, not that the majority of the population has turned the colour red. No, not that beer gardens are being filled to capacity every weekend. Summer in Ireland means seagulls. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. The birds are everywhere. They're flying around your back garden as you fire up the BBQ. They're circling the car as you eat your roll. They're mercilessly stealing your chips for the fourth time this week as you attempt to walk down the pier. They're a nuisance, a menace to society, and yet, we can't really do a whole lot about them. Or, as a new study has suggested, maybe we can. New research has suggested that staring at seagulls will make them less likely to steal your food. The study, carried out by the University of Exeter, found that the gulls take on average 21 seconds longer to approach food when they're being looked at. Researchers considered how long it took herring gulls to approach a pack of fish and chips in Cornwall when they were being watched compared to when a person had looked away. The majority of the 74 gulls involved in the study flew away or decided not to approach, with just 27 walking slowly towards the food. Lead author Madeleine Goumas told Sky News that a gull's willingness to steal food could depend on the bird's personality, or whether they had been fed food by humans in the past. "Gulls are often seen as aggressive and willing to take food from humans, so it was interesting to find that most wouldn't even come near during our tests," she said. "Of those that did approach, most took longer when they were being watched. "Some wouldn't even touch the food at all, although others didn't seem to notice that a human was staring at them." Better get staring, so.