If you eat lunch at the park or by the ocean, some enterprising animal may steal your lunch.

People have used a variety of noises, smells, and visual stimuli to keep animals away.

Humans and other animals track eye gaze for a variety of reason; watching someone is often seen as a threat.

Googly eyes on your lunch box may help, slowing down the lunch thieves if you look away for a moment.

Have you ever had your lunch stolen by a gull or some other bird? In the battle to save your lunch, scientists may have discovered a secret weapon: googly eyes.

People have used a variety of noises, smells, and visual stimuli to keep animals away (Kelley et al., 2026). Maybe you’ve sprayed your roses with coyote spray to keep the deer away — we’ve used these products, but then we don’t like the way the roses smell. Around our community, farmers have a variety of noises and visual displays they use to keep the birds (especially starlings) away from the blueberries as they ripen.

A Stolen Lunch in the Park

Eating lunch at the park or by the ocean has risks. The risk is that if you turn your back, some enterprising animal may steal your lunch. In the Pacific Northwest, where I live, we deal with squirrels, crows, and other birds in our parks. If you go down by the shore or marina, you have to watch for the gulls. Every one of them has........

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