They wait for cruise ships to leave to grab fish trying to swim away. They’re probably smarter than most people.
Based on the 2020 US election, we know at least 74,222,958 people that fall under the seagull intelligence standard.
Not a especially high bar!
The 90s are nothing. I remember a flock of seagulls from the 80s that are still flying around.
They just flew (so far away).
Any bird who lives primarily in the water is dumb as shit. They have unlimited protection above and around them, so they have zero adaptive pressure to put anything into their intelligence. Land birds have a lot to worry about so their brains are approaching human levels of intellect.
Not true at all. There’s tons of adaptive pressure. If there weren’t, we wouldn’t see the thousands of pelagic and shorebird species that we do. But even if what you say about the threat from predation were true --its not-- there would still be adaptive pressure from differential reproduction rates and access to nutrients.
Which is why you see ducks with all their spec points into r—ing and not getting r–ed. Yes they’re adapting but not to the environment.
They have enough thought process to play. Watch them fly. They play in the thermals. Do all manner of aerobatics. They know how to steal from humans. That’s not “dumb”.
Since there is videos of seagulls hunting pigeons i’d say they are pretty smart birds. They just dont give a fuck to pretend around people.
Just because an animal is territorial and good at killing does not mean it’s smart.
I’m sure there’s some seagull out there with a 1000-yard stare who went through the most fucked up shit of his life in the 90’s and still remembers it like it was yesterday. He hangs out down by the bars and drinks discarded alcohol out of the trash, trying to forget, and then flies around drunk bumping into things.
The other seagulls look at him and shake their heads with pity “he used to be such a good gull… so full of promise.”
Wait till this person hears about parrots
For real, there are at least some parrots that are likely to outlive their owners. Like if you get a pet parrot you do it considering you will likely pass it on to someone else in your fucking will.
The sadder part of this is that many “pet” parrots live much shorter than their natural life in the wild because their owners don’t know how to care for them. They’re also extremely intelligent, some researchers argue that macaws can be considered sapient for example.
Even more widespread problem with koi and goldfish. They can live well into their 80s and can grow up to many pounds over that time, yet most people have their goldfish die after two weeks and just assume that’s their natural lifespan because they’re irresponsible owners. Hint: that glass bowl is not cutting it, there isn’t a single species of fish that can be healthy in a tank without an active circulation pump and filter. Also fun fact: the Western misconception that goldfish can be kept in bowls comes from the fact that in China and Japan where they originate, owners would sometimes put them in clay bowls to show them off (which were about a meter in diameter BTW, not the soccer ball sized bowls you see nowadays), they were kept in those bowls very rarely, they were traditionally raised in large ponds.
Or crows, they reach roughly the same age and ravens can turn fucking 80 in captivity, not sure how long they live in the wild tho!
This reminds me of a talk I had with my dad, an equine veterinarian for 40 years. I’d seen that video of a horse eating a chick online and someone in the comments explained that horses are naturally opportunistic eaters and that’s why it took the chance to munch it down. I confidently told him this later on and he said, ‘nah, they’re just stupid’.
