HANDS up if you’ve ever had a seagull nick your pasty or ice cream, right out of your hand.

Oi! You at the back with your hand down. I don’t believe you. You’re either fibbing, or your time has yet to come.

There are undoubtedly things over which we folk west of the Tamar can claim superiority. We would never park our cars on a tidal beach, for example, only to watch them float away when the briny comes in. And we can reverse down country lanes, at speed, a single hand on the steering wheel.

But even we are no match for the thuggish herring gulls that patrol our seaside towns, strutting back and forth with beady eyes trained on their next snack. They have honed their skills over decades – perhaps since Warrens opened its first pasty shop in 1860, or from the moment Jelberts sold its first vanilla ice in Newlyn at the turn of the 20th century.

Who, on a hot day, can resist a Cornish ice cream? Not I. I’ve experienced the shame of having cornets half-inched in St Ives and Perranporth, while in Looe, my very young daughter was reduced to tears when a big lug snatched its prize.

Which rumbling tummy can hold out against the tantalising waft of beef skirt, onion, potato and turnip on any local high street? Not mine. In Falmouth, a canny pair worked in tandem; one divebombed me, taking a chunk out of my cheek in the process, so I would drop my lunch for the other to pick up.

What do you do in such circumstances? Chase them? Swear profusely? Fight them on the beaches? I have certainly done the first two. But according to experts at the Centre for Ecology and Conservation on the University of Exeter’s Penryn campus, the answer is simple: shouting at seagulls makes them more likely to back off.

Researchers tested a total of 61 herring gulls across nine seaside towns in Cornwall. First, they put a closed Tupperware box of chips on the ground to pique the gulls’ interest. Once a gull approached, they played either a recording of a male voice either shouting or speaking the words, “No, stay away, that’s my food!”, or the ‘neutral’ birdsong of a robin.

Nearly half the gulls exposed to the shouting voice flew away within a minute, compared with only 15 per cent exposed to the speaking voice (the rest walked away from the food, still sensing danger). In contrast, 70% of gulls exposed to the robin song stayed near the food for the duration of the experiment.

“We found that urban gulls were more vigilant and pecked less at the food container when we played them a male voice, whether it was speaking or shouting,” said Dr Neeltje Boogert.

“But the difference was that the gulls were more likely to fly away at the shouting and more likely to walk away at the speaking.

“So when trying to scare off a gull that’s trying to steal your food, talking might stop them in their tracks but shouting is more effective at making them fly away.”

So an aggressive reaction to having your grub snaffled will drive the perpetrator away? Well, duh.

Except that, crucially, the recordings by five male volunteers, whether shouting or speaking, were adjusted to be at the same volume, which suggests gulls can detect differences in the acoustic properties of human voices. “It was just the way the words were being said that was different,” said Dr Boogert.

“So it seems that gulls pay attention to the way we say things, which we don’t think has been seen before in any wild species, only in domesticated species that have been bred around humans for generations, such as dogs, pigs and horses.”

The experiment is designed to show that physical violence is not necessary to scare off gulls, and the researchers used male voices as most crimes against wildlife are carried out by men.

“Most gulls aren’t bold enough to steal food from a person,” said Dr Boogert. “They are a species of conservation concern, and this experiment shows there are peaceful ways to deter them that don't involve physical contact.” This is probably for the best, as seagull claws and beaks are formidable weapons in retaliation.

Dr Boogert feels gulls have become “quite vilified”. Last year, her research proved that when seagulls are given the choice between an urban diet of bread and cat food and a marine alternative of fresh fish, natural instincts prevailed. Sadly, a combination of reduced fish stocks in UK waters and easy access to food waste lead many to “make the best of a bad situation”.

As we all know, the best course of action in the first place is: avoid eating food in full view, and if you must, guard it with your life.