The tide was low when I saw it.
A seagull swooped down onto the waves, a piece of rotten wood clutched in its beak. At first glance, it seemed like a scrap of drift. But then came the strange part—the bird attacked it, again and again, hammering the sodden timber with desperate force.
It wasn’t play. It wasn’t instinct.
It was hunger.
The gull was trying to make food out of something that could never feed it.
Hunger in a Changing Ocean
Seagulls in Western Canada were once thriving on the abundance of marine life—fish, mussels, crabs, even scraps from sea lions. Today, their diets tell another story. Studies of gull feathers along the coast show a century-long shift: away from natural prey and toward garbage, processed food, and even plastic.
Rotten wood is not food. But a starving gull may not know the difference. Algae, insects, or even the smell of decay can trick them into trying. And when the ocean fails to provide, stress drives them to peck at anything.
The Language of Desperation
That bird on the shore was not just pecking wood—it was showing us its stress. Animals reveal their inner world through behavior:
- Frantic repetition — attacking the wood over and over.
- Displacement — turning frustration into pointless action.
- False feeding — confusing debris for survival.
What I saw was a bird caught between instinct and emptiness.
What This Says About Us
We tend to think of gulls as scavengers of our fries and trash bins. But the truth is harsher: they scavenge because we’ve taken away their seas. Overfishing, pollution, and warming waters mean fewer fish, fewer shellfish, fewer chances. So gulls chase garbage. They mistake plastic for squid. They fight wood as if it could bleed calories.
Their desperation mirrors our neglect.
A Call for Attention
That single gull is part of a larger story—an ecosystem asking for help. If seagulls, the great opportunists of the bird world, are stressed enough to attack rotten wood, what does that mean for species less adaptable than them?
It’s time we treat their cries not as noise, but as signals.
- Reduce plastic and litter near coasts.
- Support sustainable fisheries.
- Protect intertidal habitats where gulls once thrived.
Closing Reflection
The image of that gull lingers with me. A bird hammering a piece of wood, as if striking hunger itself. It looked both absurd and heartbreaking.
But maybe that’s the message: when nature reaches this level of desperation, we can’t laugh it off. We have to listen.
The seagull was not just fighting wood.
It was fighting to live.
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