When I feed bread or chips (french fries) to seagulls I always try to give the 'disabled' seagulls extra because I feel sorry for them. Do you do the same? However I recently read that some seagulls have learnt to fake disabilty so that they can get more food. Do you think that this is possible? Can seagulls fake a limp/sore leg? Are they intelligent enough to do this?
I do not know, but I do know that the seagulls around here are cocky enough to fly down and snatch your Pastie right out of your hand while you are eating it. This is, of course, is mainly down to people hand feeding them
Rii, omg that gif is hilarious!!!! Miss Chicken, did you read that online? I'd love to see the story.
Someone asked me if I was feeding seagulls in the parking lot and I denied it. I mean, they clearly saw me. So by asking, they were being irritating, so I responded by lying. My motivation was that they'll hopefully poop on her car later.
Why would anyone want to feed seagulls (other then buckshot, that is). By the way, they should be renamed. We have them here in Minnesota, and there's not a sea within thousands of miles! They really seem to love McDonald's dumpsters though...
Seagulls and pigeons are winged vermin. I never feed them. (I'll feed the ducks at the duck pond, though. I find them to be inoffensive.) One time at the zoo, I saw a seagull swoop down and steal a hotdog right out of the hand of a kid who was about 3 or 4.
I read it a few days ago. I was web searching for information on bird intelligence and came across a message board in which people were talking about seagulls. some people told stories about seagulls doing this and I left the baord to search specifcally for information on how intelligent seagulls was. I then recieved a phonecall and totally forgot about all this until just before I posted this thread. I haven't been able to find much online about the intelligence of seagulls which is why I am asking if people think these stories could be true.
It doesn't take a whole lot of intelligence to realize that behaving a certain way can get them more food.
I think it is true. Birds can mimic behavior, and if food is involved then that ups the stacks for the birds. So if a few birds see a limper get more food, then maybe the bird can put 2 and 2 together and see if limping adds to his food cache. It has been shown that birds can learn to use tools to get at food, like taking a stick and peeling back some bark to get at bugs. So why not? I think the story is true.
Vermin survive where pretty flowers perish. As we, the humans are descendants of the egg-sucking gutter trash mammals that survived when the big shot dinosaurs choked on ash and starved. Not that I'd want rats in my house. Afterall, my survival instinct tells me I do not.
little kids like to do it. There's also the tale that if you feed a seagull (and I guess most birds) bread with sodium bicarbonate on them it their stomachs explode because it creates C02 which they can't expell. But I suspet and early mythbuters ep probably disproves that.
Some birds will feign lameness to attract predators AWAY from thier nests so I do believe them capable of that intelligence. Besides, a species that successful must be pretty bright - or at least doing a lot of things right - there's a whole lotta them out here. There is also a vid of a seagull stealing chips out of a store and breaking it open for it and other birds to eat in the funny vid thread. I guess it's a regular occurrence.
At one time we used to feed them chicken wing bones that had the really hot sauce on them, funny watching the try and grab the heads of other ShitHawks when they were beat to the scrap of food, plus it would sweat the snot out them as they'd shake there heads like WTF was that. too bad its illeagal to shoot them as they are protected.
That Sam the Shoplifting Seagull from Aberdeen. I believe customers now pay for the doritos that he steals. [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqy9hxhUxK0[/yt]