Staring at Seagulls is a Life Hack that will Save Your Food
I’m watchin’ you, bird!
In case you are having a peaceful lunch alongside a scenic view of the sea, your nice picnic could easily become a mess in case you do not watch out! This is because Seagulls have a very bad reputation for stealing food right from the front of people. Moreover, Seagulls do not seemingly care whether you are on a keto diet or not. They will simply take away whatever food item they spot. However, new research done at the University of Exeter has discovered a life hack that may come in handy. The only tool that you need to use, is your eyes!
To figure out where staring at a seagull will dissuade the bird from stealing your dinner or not, the researchers visited Cornwall’s coastal towns.
There, the team of researchers placed some fries on the ground and waited. According to the university, “On average, gulls took 21 seconds longer to approach the food with a human staring at them.” This set the foundation for a newly discovered life hack. So next time, make sure you warn your uber eats delivery guy to stare them in the eye.
The test was conducted on about 74 herring gulls. However, most of these birds seem uninterested in stealing the food. Hence, only 19 seagulls were used in this life hack research. Still, the research teaches you how to be an alpha male in front of the birds (quite funny but true).
According to Madeleine Goumas, the lead author of the research ‘Herring Gulls respond to human gaze direction’, “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.”
The research also indicated that individually, seagulls tend to behave differently. Depending on individual seagulls, however, this life hack may or may not work sometimes.
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Since this research involved a sample size, chances are that your mileage of staring at gulls will be different. Nevertheless, it is worth giving it a shot rather than seeing your food go away. So the next time when you visit the seaside for a picnic, remember to try this life hack to save your food.
