Madeleine Goumas

m.goumas@exeter.ac.uk

A little bit about me

I’m a postdoctoral research associate, having completed my PhD with Project C-Gull. My research focuses on herring gulls’ use of human cues, such as food handling and gaze direction.

I am interested in human-animal interactions and the effects they have on animals’ subsequent behaviour. After moving to Cornwall for my bachelor’s degree in 2015, I started to notice and observe the local herring gulls. I quickly became aware of their poor reputation and found their relative tameness and ability to cope with urbanisation intriguing. Despite being the most studied species of gull, relatively little was known about the behaviour of herring gulls in urban areas, and I was keen to understand how they make decisions about where and on what to forage in an environment where humans can be hostile.

Publications