this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2025
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Maybe there's seagulls, maybe they're just crazy (infosec.pub)
submitted 5 days ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] Shrubbery@piefed.social 25 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Wow, it's a real study:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2025.0394
https://theconversation.com/yes-shouting-at-seagulls-actually-works-scientists-confirm-269317

[–] CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

They couldn’t find female voices as well?

[–] Beacon@fedia.io 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

When designing a study researchers limit the method to include only the factors that they think are most likely to find a signal out of the noise, and if a positive result is found then they will do further studies to test additional factors. The factors chosen to include or exclude are by necessity based on previous research results or assumptions based on available evidence.

So i would guess that when the researchers were designing this study they chose to only include male voices because of previous research or assumptions that seagulls would've had more experiences of hostility from human men than women, or maybe based on males of most species generally being the more aggressive of the sexes, or something else like that.

If you read the study paper itself (which i haven't done) i would bet they explain their exact reasoning

[–] CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

We used male voices in our experiment as most wildlife crimes against gulls reported in the media are committed by men. Although we did not test this, it seems likely that gulls are more wary of men’s voices compared to women’s voices – as found in nestling jackdaws as well as in African elephants. Men are more likely to represent a threat to these animals than women or children.

I feel like it wouldn’t have been that much more effort to get female voices as well, as they were using recordings anyways. Could also help add support to the referenced paper as well.

[–] Beacon@fedia.io 5 points 5 days ago

But that's exactly what i explained above, and which is also explained in your pull quote. It's not that also using women's voices would've been harder, it's that doing so would've been a worse study design. A good study narrows down factors to as few as possible.