A zoologist in Rome claim that , as Covid-19 has forced restaurants and cafes in Italy ’s capital letter to fill up , thirsty seagulls have resort to deplete rats and pigeon to make up for the lack of manmade solid food . Without food garbage from the city ’s tourists , the birds have been espy attacking and eating more living animals than common , including some of Rome ’s less welcome vermin .
" animate being are changing their habits as we alter ours , ” zoologist Bruno Cignini told local newspaperCorriere della Sera . Mr Cignini , who work at Rome University Tor Vergata , said : “ They are catching mostly pigeons but also swallows and black hoot . They ’re also going after fish in the Tiber . Luckily , they are also eating rats . ”
While the emergency of these “ Orcinus orca mark ” might seem shameful to some , seagulls eating living or dead animals , or killing creature for their consumption , is n’t strange . As timeserving feeders , patsy are known to eat just about anything and will adapt their feeding scheme depending on what ’s most usable to them . It ’s possible lockdown may have push more birds into feeding on pigeons and crumb as they spring up more desperate without trash from tourists , but it ’s also possible that the demeanor has only become more apparent under lockdown as the empty streets no longer distract passersby from the behaviour of these brave animals .
The universe of gull in Rome has see a veritable windfall in recent years , leading to the former deputy prize minister , Matteo Salvini , to jest that the birds were “ the size of pterodactyl ” during aTwitter argumentwith Rome ’s mayor Virginia Raggi . Meanwhile , ongoing egress with the collection and processing of litter in the city are consider to have caused a similar bunce in the city ’s rat population in recent years .
Having seen their few number of deaths from Covid-19 since lockdown began on March 10 at just 174 , Italy is organise to slow put in a return to day-by-day life this calendar week . Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has instructed that manufacturing and mental synthesis companies can return to business organization as usual with retail following suit in the come fortnight .
[ H / T : Corriere della Sera ]
