新奇事件簿 用眼神驱赶海鸥（在线收听）

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。他们的建议是盯着它们看以阻止任何食物偷窃。这条宝贵的建议来自英国埃克塞特大学的一项研究。研究人员在一个沙滩上对盯着海鸥看的效果进行了测试。他们把一袋薯条放在地上并观察在没有研究人员观察的情况下海鸥接近和抢夺薯条需要多长时间。然后他们又进行了同样的测试，不过这一次一名研究人员会在海鸥接近时和它进行目光接触。当研究人员盯着这些鸟看时，它们要多花了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."

研究人员总结到海鸥会被人类的目光吓退。仅有26%的鸟试图在眼神接触的情况下来获取研究人员的食物。四分之三的鸟只是站着不动并看着食物或是飞走。首席研究员Madeleine Goumas说到：“我注意到海鸥似乎有抢食的坏名声，但我很少看到这种事发生。我看到海鸥抢食物时，它们经常从后面扑进来，人们完全没有注意到。海鸥通常被认为具有攻击性，并且愿意从人类那里获取食物的动物，所以有趣的是，在我们的测试中，大多数海鸥都没有接近。”