Behaviour
Kelp Gulls are omnivores like most Larus gulls, and they will scavenge as well as seeking suitable small prey. It gathers on landfills and a sharp increase in its population is therefore considered as an indicator for a degraded environment. Kelp Gulls have been observed feeding on live right whales since at least 1996. The Kelp Gull uses its powerful beak to peck down centimetres into the skin and blubber, often leaving the whales with large open sores, some of which have been observed to be half a meter in diameter. This predatory behavior has been continually documented in Argentinian waters, and continues today. At rocky sites along the southern African coast, such as at Boulders Beach in Cape Town, Kelp Gulls (Larus dominicanus vetula) can be seen picking up shellfish and repeatedly flying up several meters and dropping them onto the rocks below in order to break them open.
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Famous quotes containing the word behaviour:
“The methodological advice to interpret in a way that optimizes agreement should not be conceived as resting on a charitable assumption about human intelligence that might turn out to be false. If we cannot find a way to interpret the utterances and other behaviour of a creature as revealing a set of beliefs largely consistent and true by our standards, we have no reason to count that creature as rational, as having beliefs, or as saying anything.”
—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)
“The quality of moral behaviour varies in inverse ratio to the number of human beings involved.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“When we read of human beings behaving in certain ways, with the approval of the author, who gives his benediction to this behaviour by his attitude towards the result of the behaviour arranged by himself, we can be influenced towards behaving in the same way.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)