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Venice Hotels Gives Guests Water Guns to Shoot Food-Stealing Seagulls

A hotel association in Venice is taking a new approach to fending away seagulls who are bothering their guests. The hotel staff has given guests water guns to shoot at the birds.

Gulls in the “city of canals” have become a major problem over the last few years. The gulls often snatch food straight out of tourists’ hands and have become increasingly good at it.

Source: VENICE ITALY VLOG/Youtube

“We decided to act after a customer lifted a croissant to his mouth and a lurking seagull dived and snatched it from his hand,” Enrico Mazzocco, manager of the Monaco & Grand Canal hotel, told The Times.

“On another occasion, a gull flew off with an entire steak, just as the waiter lifted the lid off the plate he was serving it on. We started placing the pistols on each table when the gulls start to circle,” he noted.

The Venice Hoteliers’ association held a seminar to come up with ways to deter the food stealers from their dining areas. Some suggested hiring a falconer to hunt the birds, while others suggested playing audio that would deter the gulls or even releasing unpleasant smells that only the birds could perceive.

“The huge number of seagulls, in addition to being an aggressive and annoying presence for people, represent a problem for health and hygiene, as well as for buildings and the environment,” Francesco Boemo, a hygiene and environment expert who coordinated the seminar, told The Guardian.

Some hotels have tried falconers, but The Hotel Monaco & Grand Canal, along with the Gritti Palace, have started to give guests orange water pistols with their room keys, as orange is a color that seagulls apparently don’t like.

This isn’t the first time water guns have been given to customers to ward off pesky seagulls. A restaurant on the waterfront of Australia also has given their patrons water guns, while another is employing dogs to help keep the scavengers away.

Source: Arab News/Youtube

“As soon as they see the pistols, they fly away,” Paolo Lorenzini, of the Gritti Palace, told the Italian press. “You don’t even need to use them, you just need to keep them on the table.”

Hopefully, the seagulls will not try to steal food anymore, the orange color will deter them, and patrons won’t have to use the water. Shooting and hurting the birds should not be a way out. There are many other options that do not include hurting the animal. Shiny materials and streamers are known to keep the birds away as well as annoying sounds or scents that only they could smell. Other options need to be explored besides resorting to shooting them with water.

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