14 DAY TRIAL // Before you go on reading any further, do take a moment to have a look at the photo next to this article. The seagull pictured in it looks so calm and peaceful and totally adorable, doesn't it? Well, it turns out that there's more to these birds than meets the eye.
Long story short, it appears that a seagull that some might want to describe as seriously deranged is now killing pigeons in London and eating them without showing any kind of remorse.
That's right, the city of London is home to a pigeon that would make a heck of a horror movie character, kind of like the killer shark portrayed in “Jaws.” More so if the movie were meant for pigeons.
So, what's the deal with this seagull?
By the looks of it, the seagull was not too long ago spotted catching and killing pigeons by a 57-year-old amateur photographer named Johanna van de Woestijne, the London Standard informs.
The woman claims to have until now witnessed two such attacks. She says that, to kill its victims, the seagull simply grabs hold of them and then drowns them in London's Serpentine lake in Hyde Park.
Johanna van de Woestijne says that the two pigeons she saw the seagulls killing and eating both tried to put up a fight. However, their aggressor proved stronger and eventually managed to drown the defenseless birds.
“I’ve seen him hunting pigeons on two separate days, both times he picked them off, dragged them into the lake and drowned them,” the 57-year-old amateur photographer told the press in an interview.
“It was one of the most violent things I have ever seen - after it happened I felt I had witnessed a murder,” Johanna van de Woestijne further detailed what it felt like to see the seagull attacking and killing the unsuspecting pigeons.
To prove that she is no liar, the 57-year-old woman agreed to share a few photos documenting these attacks with the general public. Two of them are available below, and they show the pigeon desperately trying to escape drowning.
It is understood that, at least for the time being, just this one seagull in London is displaying this troubling behavior. According to Johanna van de Woestijne, the bird is easy to tell apart from the rest of the crowd.
As she put it, “He is easy to spot as he has a distinctive look. He is fairly squat and looks muscular, like a bodybuilder. It must be the high meat diet he’s living on.”
Seagull are way more aggressive than believed
This might come as a bit of a shock to some people, but the fact of the matter is that seagulls are quite vicious creatures. In fact, the news that one such creature is now feasting on pigeons is nothing compared to the news that pigeons even attack whales.
That's right, evidence obtained by wildlife researchers indicates that, as big as they are, whales can be attacked by seagulls. Apparently, the birds simply land on their backs when the marine mammals swim close to the surface and start pecking at them.
The seagulls then gulp down whatever meat and fat they manage to tear off the whales' bodies. This behavior causes the marine mammals to develop serious injuries that sometimes get infected and prove deadly.
