Researchers have come up with a useful tactic to deter seagulls from stealing your picnic sandwiches or making a grab for your French fries. The advice is to stare at the birds to prevent any food theft. This invaluable tip comes from a study from the University of Exeter in the UK. Researchers conducted tests at a beach on the effects of staring at the sea birds. They put a bag of fries on the ground and monitored how long it took gulls to approach and snatch the fries without a researcher looking at the birds. They then carried out the same test, but this time a researcher made eye contact as a bird approached. The birds took an extra 21 seconds to approach the food when a researcher stared at them.

研究人员想出了一个有用的策略来阻止海鸥偷你的野餐三明治或抢你的薯条。建议是盯着鸟看，防止食物被偷。这个宝贵的建议来自英国埃克塞特大学的一项研究。研究人员在海滩上对凝视海鸟的效果进行了测试。他们把一袋薯条放在地上，观察海鸥在没有研究人员观察的情况下接近和抢夺薯条需要多长时间。然后他们进行了同样的测试，但这次研究人员在一只鸟靠近时进行了眼神交流。当研究人员盯着这些鸟看时，它们多花了21秒才接近食物。

The researchers concluded that the seagulls were deterred by the human gaze. Only 26 per cent of the birds made an attempt to take the researchers' food with the eye contact. Three-quarters of the birds just stood still and looked at the food or flew away. Lead researcher Madeleine Goumas said: "I noticed that gulls seemed to have a bad reputation for food-snatching, but I saw it happen quite rarely. When I did see it happen, gulls often swooped in from behind, and the people were completely oblivious. 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."

研究人员的结论是，海鸥会被人类的目光吓退。只有26%的鸟类试图通过眼神交流来获取研究人员的食物。四分之三的鸟只是静静地站着，看着食物或者飞走了。首席研究员玛德琳·古马斯说:“我注意到海鸥似乎有抢食的坏名声，但我很少看到这种情况发生。当我看到它发生的时候，海鸥经常从后面扑进来，人们完全没有注意到。海鸥通常被认为具有攻击性，并且愿意从人类身上获取食物，所以有趣的是，在我们的测试中，大多数海鸥甚至都不会靠近人类。”