Ocean City, New Jersey had a gull problem. Every summer, flocks of seagulls would swarm the town's famous boardwalk and beaches, dive-bombing tourists for pizza slices, chips and popcorn. Visitors were getting harassed mid-bite, and the town had seen enough.
The fix is unusually fun: real birds of prey. Ocean City brought in East Coast Falcons, a company that trains raptors for exactly this kind of work. Now a rotating team of hawks, falcons and owls takes to the skies over the boardwalk daily. The gulls read the presence of a predator and clear off — no traps, poisons or noisy machinery required. So far, the report card reads: it's working.
The story is told in a recent Long Read episode of the Outside Podcast, where writer Andrew Zaleski tags along on a shift with the East Coast Falcons crew as they run bird patrol over the seaside town.
There's a practical takeaway here for travellers. Seagull encounters are a staple of beach holidays on both sides of the Atlantic, and the ones that work are usually the ones where gulls have learned that humans equal food. Falconry-based deterrence is gaining traction in coastal towns precisely because it targets that learned behaviour: when gulls sense a raptor in the area, they relocate, and they don't teach their friends that boardwalk fries are easy pickings.
For visitors, it changes the vibe of a day out. Instead of eating your lunch with one hand shielding your sandwich, you might glance up and spot a falcon doing laps overhead — arguably a better boardwalk attraction than the gulls ever were. If you're heading to the Jersey Shore, it's a small but real sign that a town is investing in the visitor experience rather than just tolerating the chaos.
It's also a nice bit of wildlife-in-action for families. Kids who came for mini golf and saltwater taffy get a free raptor-spotting bonus, and the whole thing doubles as a low-key lesson in how towns can solve a nuisance problem without harming the birds doing the annoying. Gulls aren't villainised or destroyed; they're just convincingly outgunned.
