Seagulls or gulls depending on how you like to call them, are known as pests to many, a minor, avoidable annoyance to the other people, and the harbingers of death to my next-door neighbor who doesn’t go out much. Over the years, there has been an urban myth around it that the seagulls will explode if they’re fed with Alka-Seltzer. Well, it sadly ain’t true.
Though this myth has many subtle nuances depending on where you’re reading it, so it goes like this. If you feed a hungry Seagull an Alka-Seltzer tablet or something similar, upon reaching the bird’s stomach, the tablet will do its magic and cause the Seagull to violently explode into feathers. Why the myth always involves gulls instead of any other bird is because of the reason that Seagulls eat any damn thing we humans throw at them.
Some variations on this myth also try to add a little science to the mix by insisting that this is because the birds lack the ability to pass gas, which is responsible for causing the deadly explosive build-up in the bird’s stomach.
We guess that this scientific version is a kinda believable explanation of why this myth continues to exist even today. There are a couple of videos on YouTube related to this, but let’s just say the video makers should have hired a better VFS guy if they wanted this to be believable. Rather than just using things like fireworks stuffed in a dead bird or something similar.
The reason it looks quite convincing is, we have never personally heard a bird pass gas, and that’s certainly not covered in standard education systems too.
But according to veterinarian Mike Murray, just because birds don’t normally pass gas, it doesn’t mean that their bodies can’t do so if needed. If a bird ever needs to fart or burp, it could; it’s just that its diet doesn’t require it to do so.
Final words
Mike Murray made us understand why this claim is baseless with his detailed answer to the question that many people have. So, feeding Alka-Seltzer to Seagulls won’t make them blow in anyways. It’s just a baseless myth that has been spread out through the internet by many people. No research or evidence shows that they can blow because of Alka Seltzer. Most people supporting these claims would say it’s because they can’t pass gas. Well, they can pass gas when needed, but mostly, they don’t need to pass gas. It’s just that we don’t know much about it.
So, if you ever see one of those crazy videos, or if one of your friends says, “let us feed that Seagull with Alka Seltzer and watch it explode”, you can slap him on the back of his head, refer him to this article, and tell him that it isn’t true.