The sneaky bandit gulls of Granville Island.

In this case, she = a gull. (I try to avoid seagull for all sorts of reasons that would probably bore you now. We’ll save that for another day.) One of the friends that came to hang out at the Vancouver Writers Fest came away with more than a few new books—he got a nasty scratch on his cheek by an aggressive gull swooping in to steal his food. Clearly by the look of all of the signs at Granville Island, he’s not alone. This sign was just one of the many on the island.

Gulls are often vilified, but I’d argue they’re just misunderstood. (Aren’t we all?) First, there are many species so we can’t just talk about one kind of gull. (And they don’t all live by the sea, thus “seagull” is problematic.) There are tiny, delicate gulls like the ivory gull I was very fortunate to see swooping above an iceberg in the Arctic, and, sure, there are more thug-like gulls like the glaucous-winged that just happen to be very good at hanging out around people and taking advantage of all of our garbage. (Or, worse, being deliberately fed.) So, yeah, it’s kind of on us. Plus, that’s just showing how smart they are isn’t it? If you’re interested to know more about gulls and why in some places they’re starting to use cities for nesting habitat check out this article I helped edit over at Hakai Magazine.