Gulls put trust in human touch for serving easy meal

GULLS prefer stealing food from humans to finding it on their own, scientists have discovered.

In a series of experiments carried out in Falmouth and Penzance, the birds were more likely to go for flapjacks which had visibly been handled by researchers compared to flapjacks which were untouched.

The results suggest gulls use humans as a form of social clue, which may explain why they have coped well with the urbanisation of so much of their environment, the study said.

For the new study, a researcher from the University of Exeter approached individual gulls and placed two buckets on the ground in front of them, each covering a wrapped flapjack. The buckets were then removed, and the researcher picked up one of the flapjacks, handled it for 20 seconds, and then put it back down.

In total 38 gulls were tested, with 24 pecking at the flapjacks and 19 of those choosing the flapjack that had been handled.

Scientists also checked whether the birds were responding to human handling alone by repeating the experiment with non-food items – sponges cut into the same size and shape as the flapjacks. They said that this time the birds’ preference for the handled sponge did not exceed “chance levels”, suggesting that handling draws their attention to food in particular.

Until now, it was not known whether herring gulls are attracted to food itself, or whether there was something about human behaviour to which they respond. Dr Laura Kelley said: “Our findings suggest that gulls are more likely to approach food that they have seen people drop or put down, so they may associate areas where people are eating with an easy meal.”

The new study is published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.