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When in Rome, Sea Gulls Do as They Please (avian community)

#1
C C Offline
Seagull rescued after becoming tangled in power line in VA
https://www.wspa.com/news/seagull-rescue...1506094646

EXCERPT: A seagull was rescued by helicopter after being tangled in a power line in southeast Virginia. Dominion Energy officials were notified Saturday evening that the seagull was tangled in a high voltage transmission line near the Lesner Bridge and Shore Drive. The rrescue took place with a helicopter and a man who reached out to grab the bird from the wire, according to Dominion Energy. Officials say at around 1:30 p.m. Sunday the seagull was safely rescued and currently in the hands of the Virginia Beach SPCA and Wildlife rehab team....



When in Rome, Sea Gulls Do as They Please
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/world...italy.html

EXCERPT: Romans have for years bemoaned the degradation of their city: the potholes, the burning buses, the unkempt parks and the uncollected garbage, stinking its streets and clogging its river. But the sea gulls aren’t complaining about the overgrown spaces and free food, and their raucous sundown ritual of circling over the Forum and Palatine Hill does not augur well for Rome. “We’ve told them Rome is their home,” said Francesca Manzia, the director of the Italian League for Bird Protection in Rome. “And they are acting like it.”

The sea gull population in Rome has grown in recent years to the tens of thousands, according to some experts. Their physical dimension has grown, too, as they gorge on the smorgasbord of trash, snack on handouts from complicit tourists and snatch sandwiches from unsuspecting pedestrians. A species with a taste for pigeons, bats, starlings and sometimes other sea gulls, the Larus michahellis protects its territory like a local heavy.

If some mayors promise a chicken in every pot, Rome’s have delivered a sea gull atop every garbage bin. The birds, which can live for decades, have settled comfortably in the city’s rooftops, church towers and ancient ruins. Their shrill squawks, sounding like a flock of colicky babies, pierce the evening sky. “Once in contact with a new species — us — they have learned to respond,” said Ms. Manzia, who explained that sea gulls interpret human handouts as a sign of submission. “They think, ‘O.K., this is my territory now.’ ”

With no culling plans in the works, Ms. Manzia said she has repeatedly explained to city officials they need to clean the city and improve Roman behavior if they want to reduce the sea gull population. “The city says, ‘Impossible,’ ” she said.

And so, at a recent performance of “La Traviata” in the Baths of Caracalla, an ancient ruin and longtime sea gull haunt, I listened as an operatic duet became a trio with a screeching sea gull. On a rooftop outside the Vatican, where sea gulls have ripped to shreds peace doves released out the pope’s window, I watched as a pair ominously swooped above the purple zucchetto, or skullcap, of the Vatican foreign minister. A couple in the Trastevere district, with a terrace to die for, risk, well, dying on it, as squatting gulls defend it beak and talon.

This avian onslaught has spurred a resistance. Barbara Nat, an architect, saw the birds shredding the garbage bags under her balcony by the Circus Maximus and grabbed three oranges from the kitchen. She fired them at the birds and connected. “It felt good,” she said.

[...] For the sea gull there is only the law of natural selection. Despite all the bad headlines they have attracted (“Seagulls Attack Man,” “Seagulls Injure Child”), and all the internet videos of sea gulls feasting on a pigeon atop a police car or dragging rats around piazzas, the birds can’t be blamed for following their instincts to protect their young and enjoy the all-you-can-eat streets.

But it’s hard to forgive them their smell. “Being an animal that eats garbage,” Ms. Manzia said as she walked out of a pungent cage filled with dozens of sea gulls, “they stink like garbage.”

MORE: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/world...italy.html
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#2
Magical Realist Offline
I guess it's not that much of a gastronomical leap for a seagull to go from eating fish to eating pigeons. But hell it looks bad!
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#3
Yazata Offline
It isn't just Rome. Seagulls do as they please in San Francisco too. They probably do everywhere close to the ocean. (Seagulls are like crows, bad-ass birds who still remember their dinosaur ancestors. They are born with attitude.)  

San Francisco's seagulls are obsessed with baseball. It's true!

They notice when the lights are on at the Giants' bayfront ballpark for night games and birds start gathering in the later innings, when they sense that the human crowd will soon leave. If a game goes into extra innings, the birds say 'screw this waiting' and swarm the field and try to drive people away.

What they want is for all the human fans to leave the stands so they can search for dropped food. They are smart and have learned that hunting for scraps is much easier than hunting for fish at sea. So they get lazy, relaxing all day, doing the seagull equivalent of smoking cigarettes and drinking beer, then get rowdy at night.


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