British Seagulls Are Becoming Fat Slobs

According to an article written by Joshua Taylor in the Mirror, seagulls in Britain are becoming ‘fat slobs.’  Gulls living in urban settings are increasingly seeking out discarded human foods such as burgers and pastries in favor of fish.

British biologists and undergraduate students conducted comparative eating habit studies between seagulls in urban areas to those living along the coast.  The obvious result: city gulls prefer fast food.  In many urban locations, when given a choice between fish and bread, the birds took the bread in 95 percent of case studies.  Some of the researchers expressed concern about the birds becoming fat and developing heart disease.

Reading the article about British seagulls made me think about my grandmother.  In her late years, my grandmother worried about pretty much everything you might imagine: weather, misplaced newspapers, her grandchildren, soup, baseball schedules, and on into infinity.  If nothing of immediate importance was available as a subject for worry, my grandmother would invent something.  The seagulls would have been a nice thing for her to worry about.

--Mitchell Hegman           Photo: UK Mirror