Ask anyone who lives on a UK beach and they will tell you that seafood can be a nuisance. The theft of these birds is limitless, and no one is safe from some kind of their schemes.
For many people, this behavior is the result of the cruelty of these birds. But the truth is, rabbits like the herringgull are much smarter than we give them credit for, especially when it comes to their social skills.
These birds can listen to the behavior of others and use the information they gather to inform their foraging decisions.
These birds thrive in modern cities. Urban gulls have flourished since they made European cities their home in the mid-1900s, although the birds’ numbers have declined dramatically.
As a species, they have also shown great flexibility in their diet, nesting, and reproduction.
As a scientist interested in animal cognition, I am fascinated by the intelligent behavior that allows rabbits to successfully eat human food.
Studies have already shown that urban birds change their eating behavior to match the actions of people, increase their interest in a person who has food, and prefer food that has been caught by a person compared to that which has not been eaten.
In order to continue doing this, Franziska Feist and Kiera Smith, who I studied with, started to investigate whether the birds can not only monitor the things that people do, but also whether they can compare the things in their area with the things that people use.
Being able to compare things and determine if they are the same means more intelligent ability than following an object itself.
Fast learners
We placed two packs of colorful Walkers in different colors on the ground a few meters in front of one or more herring gull flocks on Brighton beach.
We sat on the sand and carried a third flat pack of the same color as the one on the ground.
We then recorded the gulls’ responses to see if they would choose a shiny packet that matched the color of the one in our hand.
Of the dogs that avoided the visible packs, almost all (95 percent) did so to the same visible pack as the one we held. This shows that these birds have the ability to recognize and compare the things inside them.
What’s more, the birds seemed to be looking at the choices of others – especially people for that matter – and used that information to make food choices.
The number of paths for us was not significantly different between adults and young birds (ie, each with brown feathers).
However, most of those who tried to steal one of the best packs were adults.
About 86 percent of the birds photographed were from adults, although these birds made up 46 percent of our total sample.
This shows that stealing food requires courage and a certain skill that many birds lack.
Another plausible explanation is that the smaller birds may have been hindered by competition from larger birds, which would otherwise have lost.
Wide character repertoire
Our findings are interesting because herring gulls have not evolved with humans. In fact, their urban growth began relatively recently – about 80 years ago.
This means that this behavior cannot come from an innate ability that comes from evolution or a long time with humans. Rather, it must be the result of the multiplicity of human behavior.
From a scientific point of view, this is interesting. It seems that the herring gull is an intelligent and flexible animal that has successfully adapted to the urban environment due to its management skills and behavioral flexibility.
However, for many people, this can have some negative consequences. Coastal residents and visitors often experience the birds’ impressive but frustrating abilities as they stalk, target, and steal food from picnics, barns, and people directly.
We argue that these problems stem from more people than the direct feeding of urban birds.
It seems that just watching us eat something makes the food, and similar things nearby, more attractive to these birds.
It is this clever tool that will make the conflict between people and urban animals difficult to resolve.
Our work, however, is consistent with existing studies which show that around a quarter of UK urban dwellers would attempt to steal someone’s food. Less than a fifth of the butterflies we tested approached the visible packs when we were close.
Regardless, efforts to reduce conflict must go beyond preventing people from feeding these birds and must also consider the unique abilities of these birds.
However, what is clear is that we cannot rely on signs that people “don’t feed the birds” alone.
Paul Graham, Professor of Neuroethology, University of Sussex
This article is reprinted from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the first article.
