Struggles with seagulls have become part of many Dubliner's lives, with the pesky gulls seeming to have doubled in size and aggression over the past few years.
We've heard all sorts of stories about the troublesome birds, from them being banned from the Guinness Brewery site , to a Chihuahua being taken by one from a garden in the UK.
Between January and June 2019, pest control company 'Rentokil' experienced a whopping 86% increase in calls to deal with aggressive birds, such as seagulls, compared to the same period in 2018.
42% of these calls came from the capital.
Dublin people have been left baffled and even scared by the gulls who quickly swoop in and steal their food, but it turns out there might be a way to stop that.
According to a study carried out by Madeleine Goumas in The University of Exeter, locking eye contact with a seagull may prevent them going for your tasty meal.
Goumas went to some of the most popular seaside places in the UK, and carried with her a sealed bag of chips and a stopwatch.
For half of the tests Goumas pretended not to look at the birds, but for rest, she purposely maintained eye contact with them to see if they would still approach.
Her study found that eye contact made the birds nervy and approach less. In fact, only 27 of the 74 birds approached when she locked eyes.
Goumas said: "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.
"Of those that did approach, most took longer when they were being watched. Some wouldn't even touch the food at all, although others didn't seem to notice that a human was staring at them."
