This is scientific American 60 second science. I'm Christopher in Tagata.

No trip to the beach would be complete without a swarm of hungry gulls.

But don't get distracted, because one of those gulls may soon go after your food.

There's a very small proportion of extremely bold individuals that seem to ruin the reputation of the whole species.

Nelcheboger, an animal behavior researcher at the University of Exeter.

She studied the food-snatching habits of gulls in seaside towns in the southern UK and she found

that very few, only the boldest, would actually take the bait or make that the bite.

The experiment went like this, a researcher crouched near a gull and then set out a plastic bag of french fries.

For those brave gulls that then started to approach, the researcher either stared straight at the

gull, as in, I see you thief, or the researchers simply looked away.

And it turns out staring down the gulls made them hesitate 21 seconds on average before

approaching the fries. The results are in the journal

biology letters. And gulls aren't the only ones who behave better when

being watched. A 2006 study found that people paid three times as much for their

drinks at an unattended Honor System

coffee bar when just an image of staring eyes was displayed nearby.

As for the gulls, Bogart points out that we need to learn to live with them because the

particular species she studied the herring gull is on the UK's red list of

birds of conservation concern. The thing is people don't want to have a seaside holiday

without gulls there So it's just finding ways to harmoniously live with one of the only wildlife species we still have around in these coastal areas.

So don't turn you back on the goals, she says, both figuratively

for conserving the species and of course literally for conserving your launch.

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