Want gulls to back off? Here's how to talk to them

Urban herring gulls aren’t just watching your lunch; they’re listening to you. New research shows that the way we speak to gulls – specifically, the emotional “shape” of our voice – can tip the balance between a bold snatch-and-grab and a tactical retreat. 

Experts from the University of Exeter found that shouting made seagulls more likely to fly off entirely, while a calm spoken warning tended to halt pecking but prompted a wary walk-away.

Neutral birdsong did almost nothing. The upshot: tone matters, and it can be harnessed as a humane deterrent.

How the experiment worked

To tempt curiosity, the team placed a closed Tupperware box of fries on the ground and waited for a herring gull to approach. 

When a gull approached the food, researchers played one of three recordings through a speaker: a man calmly saying, “No, stay away, that’s my food”; the same phrase shouted; or, as a neutral control, the sound of a robin singing.

The recordings came from five different male volunteers so that results weren’t driven by a single voice.

Crucially, the researchers level-matched the audio – every playback was the same loudness – so any differences in gull behavior would be driven by vocal quality (prosody), not sheer volume.

How the gulls reacted

Across 61 gulls tested in nine seaside towns around Cornwall, the pattern was striking. Almost half of the birds presented with the shouted warning took off within a minute. 

When they heard the same phrase spoken calmly, far fewer took flight. Most birds broke off their approach and walked away, keeping their distance while continuing to watch the scene. 

The robin song achieved the opposite: about 70% of gulls stayed put for the full trial, showing little deterrence.

In other words, even when loudness is controlled, gulls parse the acoustic “how” of human speech and adjust their risk calculations.

Why tone beats volume

Because all sounds were played at the same decibel level, the gulls weren’t reacting to loud versus quiet.

They were reacting to the contour and emphasis of the human voice – the clipped onset, sharper pitch dynamics, and tighter timing typical of a shout versus the smoother, more conversational cadence of normal speech. 

That difference appears to matter biologically: a shout triggered an immediate flight response, while a firm spoken warning communicated danger without panic, prompting a slower retreat.

The robin control illustrates the point: pleasant ambient sound that carries no social threat signal did little to deter interest.

A humane deterrent for gulls

Herring gulls are often painted as marauders, yet most individuals won’t risk stealing directly from a person. When they do, the conflict is memorable and social narratives harden. 

This study is a reminder that you don’t need to swat, shoo, or throw anything. A clear human voice can reset the interaction. 

Speaking firmly may be enough to stop pecking at a container or plate. If a bird is particularly bold, a sharp, authoritative shout increases the odds it will abandon the attempt and fly off.

This is significant because herring gulls are a conservation concern in the UK, and non-violent deterrence helps people and birds coexist on busy promenades and beaches.

What this tells us about city gulls

Urban gulls are extraordinarily perceptive. Prior work has shown they follow human gaze and attend to our behavior. 

This adds another layer: they also extract social information from how we vocalize. That ability is well-documented in domestic animals (dogs, horses, pigs), but is rarely demonstrated in wild species that haven’t been bred alongside humans. 

City gulls, living shoulder-to-shoulder with people, appear to have learned that human vocal prosody carries meaning about risk.

Future research directions

As tidy as the results are, they come from a deliberately controlled setup: the food was sealed in a container and no humans were hovering protectively over a plate. Real beach scenes are messier. 

The experiment used only male voices. Testing female voices, different languages, and varied phrases would show whether the effect is about “male timbre,” specific acoustic features associated with urgency, or simply any human voice shaped into a warning contour. 

It would also be valuable to test open food, groups of gulls rather than lone birds, and pair sound with visual cues (e.g., eye contact, hand motions), since gulls integrate multiple signals when deciding whether to press or abort a raid.

Wild animals are listening

If a gull is disturbing you, look up and address the bird. A firm, direct warning can short-circuit the approach. If it keeps coming, escalate to a sharp shout. 

You’re not trying to scare wildlife for sport. You’re setting a clear boundary that protects your food and reduces the chance of a risky close encounter. If you simply ignore the bird – or serenade it with birdsong – it’s more likely to stick around.

The broader lesson is simple and surprisingly hopeful: wild animals that live among us are listening.

With small changes in how we communicate, we can nudge tense human-wildlife interactions toward safer, kinder outcomes, both for them and for us.

The study is published in the journal Current Biology.

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