{"id":3663,"date":"2025-11-12T13:04:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T13:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/12\/shouting-at-seagulls-stops-food-theft\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T13:04:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T13:04:16","slug":"shouting-at-seagulls-stops-food-theft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/12\/shouting-at-seagulls-stops-food-theft\/","title":{"rendered":"Shouting at seagulls stops food theft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>2025-11-12 13:04:14<\/b><br \/>\n<BR>Holidaymakers fed up with greedy seagulls stealing their chips may finally have the answer \u2014 simply shout at them.<BR><br \/>\nResearchers at the University of Exeter found that raising your voice is one of the most effective ways to scare off herring gulls looking for a snack.<BR><br \/>\nScientists tested 61 gulls across nine seaside towns in Cornwall, placing a closed box of chips on the ground and playing different sounds when the birds approached \u2014 including a man calmly speaking, a man shouting, &#8220;No, stay away, that\u2019s my food&#8221;, and the song of a robin.<BR><br \/>\nNearly half of the gulls exposed to the shouting fled within a minute, compared with just 15 per cent that heard the normal speaking voice, and only 30 per cent that flew off after hearing the robin\u2019s chirping.<BR><br \/>\nDr. Neeltje Boogert, of Exeter\u2019s Centre for Ecology and Conservation, said: &#8220;So when trying to scare off a gull that&#8217;s trying to steal your food, talking might stop them in their tracks but shouting is more effective at making them fly away.&#8221;<BR><br \/>\nThe university explained that the experiment was designed to show that physical violence is not necessary to scare off the winged pests.<BR><br \/>\nDr. Boogert said: &#8220;Most gulls aren&#8217;t bold enough to steal food from a person, I think they&#8217;ve become quite vilified.<BR><br \/>\n&#8220;What we don&#8217;t want is people injuring them. They are a species of conservation concern, and this experiment shows there are peaceful ways to deter them that don&#8217;t involve physical contact.&#8221;<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Visit Bang Bizarre (main website) <\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><script src=\"https:\/\/geo.dailymotion.com\/player\/xtbac.js\" data-video=\"\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2025-11-12 13:04:14 Holidaymakers fed up with greedy seagulls stealing their chips may finally have the answer \u2014 simply shout at them. Researchers at the University of Exeter found that raising&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3227,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bizarre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3663"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3664,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3663\/revisions\/3664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}