We are interested in the cognitive and sensory processes that underlie herring gulls’ exploitation of human resources, with the aim of developing tools to mitigate negative human-gull interactions. In the last few years, we have found that gulls can pay attention to gaze direction, they prefer foods that have been handled by a human, and, despite appearances, they are actually quite shy! This research is led by Neeltje Boogert and Laura Kelley.