Seagulls will eat just about anything.
This might not be surprising when they're swooping over Granville Island picnic tables or circling the landfill. But it might be when they're at the seashore in Stanley Park and it looks like purple tentacles are reaching up from inside a gull's throat.
That was the case when a recent low tide exposed dozens of purple starfish near Prospect Point. As weekend visitors walked the seawall, seagulls stalked the seashore, snapping up starfish. While the sight stopped many in their tracks as they tried to figure out what the gulls were eating, it's not all that unusual of a meal choice for the birds, says Stanley Park Ecological Society's Dacyn Holinda.
"It's more common than you might expect," he says. "It looks a little bit silly, but the seagulls are doing it for a reason; they're super opportunistic feeders and if they think they can get it down they'll go for it."
Starfish are actually a good meal, too, Holinda says, providing the seagulls with good "bang for their buck."
"It actually provides a pretty good amount of nutrition; it's quite an ordeal but it's quite a payoff for the birds," he explains.
How do seagulls eat starfish?
Typically, hunting is the hard part for a predator, but catching the starfish is a matter of waiting for low tide for the seagulls. However, swallowing is the hard part, Holinda says.
"They can't chew, so they're using throat muscles," he explains. "It takes a while to break that down."
The gulls have strong throats, gizzards, and intestinal muscles to help push and pull the starfish down. At the same time, the muscles will squeeze the starfish into a more swallow-able shape.
"It's like eating a real big meal for (the seagulls)," he explains. "(Starfish) are invertebrates; when they're wet they're softer and they lack bones."
It's a taxing experience and the gulls will often take their time and stay relatively still while trying to get the big meal down their throat. It may seem hard to do, but some gull species are known to swallow whole squirrels and rabbits. If something is too big, the gulls always have the option to regurgitate it.
Seagulls are a bit like snakes, and will eat pretty much anything they can get their mouths around, Holinda says. At the same time, they "aren't considered incredibly intelligent birds," so they won't put a lot of thought into whether it's a good idea or if it really is food.
"If they think they can get it into their mouth they'll try it," he says.
While it may look goofy, it still shows the rawness of nature.
"It's a pretty brutal thing if you think about it," Holinda says. "But it's just how nature is."
