The clip, which was posted on a wildlife-focused TikTok account, captures the gull gobbling up a fluffy black squirrel in a snake-like fashion. Each time the bird gulps, the unwitting prey’s hind legs and bushy tail disappear further down its gullet.
John Anderson, a professor of ecology and natural history at College of the Atlantic in Maine, has been studying gulls for decades. He says while they can and do hunt, he’s rarely seen one killing a small mammal. He suspects the squirrel was already dead when the gull found it.
“Honesty, it’s a herring gull doing what a herring gull does,” Anderson told CBC. “They are scavengers.”
