Dr Michelle Dickinson: nanotechnologist reveals unexpected tip to stop seagulls from stealing your chips

I’ve already talked this year about research that shows staring at a seagull will prevent it from stealing your chips, but as beach season starts again - here is another science backed tactic that you can use.

According to new research published in the journal Biology Letters the best defence might be the simplest - just shout at the gull! 

The researchers tested 61 on how they responded to human voices after placing a portion of chips in a gull hotspot. As soon as a gull approached, the team played one of three recordings: 

• A male voice shouting: 
  “NO, STAY AWAY, THAT’S MY FOOD, THAT’S MY PASTY!”
• The same voice speaking the same words in a normal tone.
• Birdsongs from a robin.

All recordings were played at the same volume, so “shouting” didn’t mean louder, just sharper and more commanding. 

Gulls are surprisingly sensitive to the tone of human speech, even when the loudness stays the same. 

Nearly half the gulls exposed to the shouting voice flew away within a minute. 

Only 15 percent flew away when they heard the normal speaking voice and many walked away. 

70 percent of gulls who heard the robin stayed exactly where they were.

This is the first known study showing that wild animals can distinguish between different emotional tones in human speech. Dogs, pigs, and horses can do this, but it’s never been studied in seagulls.

A future version of the study may test whether a woman’s voice works just as well, or perhaps even better. 

It’s not often science gives us an excuse to yell in public, but in this case you can claim it’s for your own good.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Edb Okay is upon us and a lot of us
heading after packs and beaches and various places to have
a picnic where we quite often end up having to
share our meal with the local seagulls. But a new
study hair's determined the best way to stop a seagull
from stealing your chips. Dotor Michelle Dickinson is with me
now to explain more.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
I love seagull research. Look, it wasn't that long ago
I came in and we were chatting about this research
that said if you stared at a seagull intently, it
won't steal your chips. Well, we've gotten one up from this.
There is new seagull research and I had to share
it with you because if you're done with staring, the
new study says, all you have to do is yell
at the seagull, and you have to be very specific
in you're yelling, and by yelling we don't have to

(00:55):
increase our volume. This is what's interesting. So these amazing
researchers just put a box of chips out in popular
seagull tourist areas, so where seagulls will be stealing your
chips anyway, a box of hot chips and just let
the seagulls come over and eat them. And then they
had recordings of a male voice doing different things. So

(01:15):
in the first the male voice shouted, no, stay away,
that's my food, and the recording just kept going on
and they observed what these seagulls did. And then they
had the same voice saying the same things but in
a more gentle tone, so no, stay away, go to
my chips, whatever it is. And then they had a
recording of a robin just singing delightfully, just to show

(01:39):
that if is it a sound or is it the
sound of the human voice? This is what's important. All
of these sounds were played exactly the same volume. So
although the man voice was shouting, it was no louder
than the talking.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
His tone was different.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Yeah, the tone and the sharpness of the words were different,
but the volume was the same. Because we know that
higher volume can scare away birds. And the reason why
this is interesting is because we know that domesticated animals
can tell the difference between the tone in our voice. Dogs, cats,
for example, If you change your tone. If you're sharp
with your tone but not the volume, your dog will
know the command is different. But we've never seen this

(02:16):
in wild animals before. What they found is, yeah, half
of the girls that listened to the shouting voice or
the angry voice flew away within a minute, but only
fifteen percent flew away when they heard the normal speaking voice.
So there's something about human tone that seagulls have, whether
it's because they've been because they're in high tourist areas,

(02:36):
whether it's just because they're around people a lot, or
it's innate to them. They can tell an angry, scary
human versus a non scary one and they choose to leave,
whereas the ones who were just spoken to just sort
of walked backwards but didn't fly away. They were like, whoa,
the chips are still in. We're not going to too far.
This isn't scary. And so this is really interesting from

(02:58):
a are they understanding our tone? And is it because
seagulls have been not domesticated but around humans much more
in these tourist areas. And so I really like it
as a study because I couldn't just imagine this like
Hi Fi system with these chips next to it in
like a tourist area, just yelling like no, stay away.
But what was interesting is they only did a male voice,

(03:20):
so the researchers were like, well, you might not have
a male at your picnic, So now they're going to
redo the study with a female voice to see whether
or not it was like the tone right. But yeah.
So basically, if you've got a male at your picnic
and you've got a seagull and you're done staring with it,
step number two, according to science. Because I'm full of
useful facts like this is to get your man to

(03:41):
go no, stay away. Those are my chicks.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
And if you don't hear the man, just lower your
voice a little bit and put on you put on
your your seagull voice is a new voice to head
to the mix of the many other voices, appearance and
things that we h Thank you so much, Michelle. We
are all now prepared for the summer.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to news Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio. Hope