When a seagull tries to steal your chips on the beach this summer, put on your most authoritative deep voice and tell them loudly: “That’s my food!”

For best results, get a man to shout it.

That’s the takeaway of a study exploring the most effective way to deter gulls from stealing human food without resorting to violence or even flapping your arms.

Experiments by researchers from the UK’s University of Exeter focused on wild herring gulls – a European seagull that is related to Australia’s most common seagull, the silver gull, but larger.

They recorded five male volunteers speaking and shouting the words “No! Stay away! That’s my food, that’s my pasty!”, then played the recording at locations across nine towns in Cornwall, south-western England.

The results, published this month in Biology Letters, showed that the gulls were more likely to walk away from the men speaking, but flew away when the same words were shouted. That was despite the recordings being adjusted to be played at the same volume.

“Normally, when someone is shouting, it’s scary because it’s a loud noise, but in this case all the noises were the same volume, and it was just the way the words were being said that was different,” said Dr Neeltje Boogert, of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at Exeter’s Penryn Campus in Cornwall.

“It seems that gulls pay attention to the way we say things.”

The experiment, which used a recording of a robin’s birdsong as a control, showed that gulls were more vigilant and pecked less at the food container when they heard a male voice, whether it was speaking or shouting.

“But the difference was that the gulls were more likely to fly away at the shouting and more likely to walk away at the speaking,” Boogert said in a University of Exeter article.

“When trying to scare off a gull that’s trying to steal your food, talking might stop them in their tracks but shouting is more effective at making them fly away.”

The researchers said a similar study that also used female voices could offer insight into whether gulls are sensitive to pitch, adding: “It is possible that herring gulls can discriminate between genders and are more scared of one than the other, as in wild jackdaws [a type of crow].”

Their study was prompted by the increasing conflict between humans and gulls in urban areas, especially places where the birds find it easy to forage food such as playgrounds and town squares.

Previous UK research that Boogert was also part of found gulls actually preferred to peck at food that had been handled by a human rather than that which hadn’t been touched.

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Earlier this year, signs went up in towns on England’s East Yorkshire coast warning people not to feed seagulls, with the local council saying there were “many reports of gulls ‘mugging’ people for their food”.

One British tabloid described “kamikaze-diving” seagulls as “terrifying flying threats”, quoting a conservative politician as saying aggressive gulls had attacked seven children in one month in a town in Scotland.

Rachael Hamilton reportedly claimed one girl even had gashes to her scalp after being dive-bombed

“Aggressive seagull behaviour continues to cause a real concern… It is a serious, growing health risk,” she said.

Boogert said the research was designed to show that people didn’t need to use physical violence to deter gulls.

“Most gulls aren’t bold enough to steal food from a person – I think they’ve become quite vilified,” she said.

“What we don’t want is people injuring them. They are a species of conservation concern, and this experiment shows there are peaceful ways to deter them that don’t involve physical contact.”

Some UK councils warn people not to feed seagulls. Photo: Partonez / Wikimedia Commons

Australia’s seagulls may not be as aggressive as their European counterpart, but they’re certainly fond of a chip. In fact, a significant increase in their numbers in the past 100 years or so has been attributed to their scavenging abilities.

“Since the 1950s, society has become increasingly wasteful, with our rubbish tips now bulging at the seams,” the BirdLife Australia website says.

“With this increased availability of food in the form of refuse, the population of silver gulls has exploded, and offshore islands which once supported small breeding colonies are now overrun.”

Nonetheless, BirdLife’s Sean Dooley told the ABC earlier this year that population growth has slowed in recent years.

Like Boogert, Dooley reckons gulls get a bad rap for their “chip-thieving exploits” and the way they gather around bins.

“Which is all a bit unfair on the gull, as they are only responding to the favourable conditions we have created for them,” he said.