SHARE

You’ll either think this is really cool or it will give you nightmares, or maybe a little bit of both. This video, recorded back in 2021, is going viral. It shows a herring seagull gulping down a whole squirrel like it’s an unattended hot dog on Coney Island.

The video appears to have been originally posted to YouTube by an account known as Kalo. Though the squirrel might seem like an unexpected thing for a seagull to eat, experts say that gulls, like black bears, are notorious for being “opportunistic feeders,” meaning they’ll try to gulp down almost anything they come across.

“This is not barbaric behavior. This is just the norm,” urban gull expert Peter Rock said on CBC Radio’s As It Happens show. “It’s to be expected from seagulls that they are going to eat whatever is available. And if it happens to be some weakling animal, then they will kill it and they will eat it…I’ve seen them eating rats, I’ve seen them feasting on pigeons, and so on. So it is not an uncommon thing. Though, this, I have to say, is the first time I’ve come across [one eating] a squirrel.”

Read Next: Watch Komodo Dragon Swallow a “Deer” Whole

Most likely, the gull happened upon the dead squirrel and decided to scavenge it and did not actually hunt it itself. Regardless, the resulting footage is disturbing—in a good way, I guess…It’s just a seagull doing what seagulls do. Check out a couple of other similar videos below.

Watch a Seagull Hunt and Eat Pigeons

Watch a Seagull Gulp Down a Rat

Watch a Flock of Seagulls Chow Down on a Pizza

Sage Marshall
Sage Marshall

Sage Marshall joined Field & Stream as an editorial intern in 2018, when he worked at the publication’s former office in Manhattan. His desk-mate was a mounted warthog. After graduating from college, he worked as a freelance journalist for two years before returning to the F&S team full-time in 2021 as the brand’s News Editor.

Bird Conservation
Wildlife Conservation
news