Porto is considering making it illegal to feed seagulls.

They are noisy, messy, wily thieves. I was having lunch by the river in Ribeira when two gulls swooped in and stole cod pastries right off my plate, swift as a hawk on a dove, without so much as a “Pardon me, have you finished yet?” But as you know, I’m a critter lover. I’m fascinated by the gulls’ behavior and their language. They screech, laugh, shout, call, converse, murmur, and mutter. At night they appear as graceful silver ornaments floating over the city.

A pair of gulls I have named Leonard and Grace spend much of their time directly across the street from me.

Leonard is fairly bold, Grace more standoffish. Technically, I have no idea which is male and which is female, I’m simply observing behavior and reacting with typical anthropomorphism. I try to be respectful of the fact that feeding gulls is not desirable, but it’s hard to resist. So I have adopted what I like to pretend is a responsible feeding strategy. I only feed Leonard and Grace, and only by invitation. Any other gulls are shooed off the balcony wall to discourage roosting. Every couple of days, when I see L&G lounging across the street, I step out and whistle. If they respond and look up, I show them the snack I have for them – only a small bite, never any big prizes to gloat about to others. If they show up when I have not whistled, I shoo them off. Leonard caught on quickly at first, but the shooing off confused him. So, we’re working on it. The stale cashews I offer up are a valuable incentive.

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Another Kind of Thief

10:00 Saturday morning. 58 F, cloudy, intermittent showers.

I used the last of the coffee this morning. Wanting to avoid the tragedy of a Sunday morning with no freshly made coffee, and seeing that the showers had paused, I stepped around the corner to Sanzala Coffee Roasters to replenish my store of Mistura Sanzala roast, custom ground to my specifications.

Fresh, aromatic coffee in hand, I stepped out and stood on the corner for a moment, debating whether I should stroll over to the Bolhao Market and pick up some fruit and greens.

That was when I heard a shrill screaming that sounded like a gull was being murdered.

It repeated, louder. Catty-corner across from me, a woman stood in front of Casa Januario (wonderful store for baking specialties), screaming so urgently I thought someone really was being murdered. Along with others nearby, I ran to see what was wrong. I was halfway through the intersection when a man flew out of the jewelry store next door, sprinting for all he was worth.

A black hoodie covered his face, and his black sweatpants were a blur of motion.

Something that looked like jewelry fell from his hand, then the clatter of a smart phone as he dropped it in his haste. He hesitated. Three men had taken chase and seeing that people were tending to the woman, I chased after the fallen items. Parallel strategies raced through my brain. I tried to figure a way to slow him down, to give others time to catch him. One man almost had him. The thief turned and used his superior height to shove the man to the ground. He landed right at my feet, blocking any way I could angle ahead to the sidewalk and throw a nearby bicycle into the path of the scoundrel. The thief was athletically built and fast, fleeing to busy Avenue dos Aliados and disappearing.

I turned and retrieved the broken pieces of the smart phone from the street. Back at the scene of the crime, people were comforting the woman. They escorted an older man who appeared to be her husband from the store and provided a stool for him to sit on. He seemed to be dazed from a knock on the head. There was no blood, and thankfully it appeared there was no injury other than some possible bruises. The woman was a bit hysterical. Several bystanders were crying.

A lady from the jewelry store came out with a bag for the smart phone pieces. Apparently, we have all watched enough crime shows to know to do this. Another man found what I thought was shiny jewelry that dropped from the thief’s hand. It was a set of keys, and they were deposited into a bag as well.

As it became clear that no one was hurt, the fear in the small crowd turned to anger. As best I could tell, they were angry that something like this could happen in their Porto.

The police arrived and things began to calm down. It appeared the thief had tried to rob someone in the jewelry store. Or perhaps he went in right when the store opened and attempted to steal jewelry. An officer took my contact information, and asked if I could help with identification in a lineup if needed.

I felt angry of course, but mostly saddened and frustrated. Sad that these kind people experienced this. Frustrated that I couldn’t have found something to throw in front of the thief to slow him down. I was impressed at how everyone ran toward the lady in trouble, and how the three men took chase. No one ran away from the situation, they all showed concern and wanted to help. And they were shocked and hurt. This is not something they deal with on a regular basis – or even hear in the news – unlike many cities in the US.

Two American tourists asked me, “Where was the gunfire?”

As we were all leaving the scene and going back to our Saturday morning business, people were thanking the men who took chase. Two American tourists asked me, “Where was the gunfire?” They were on the Praça do Municipio, the park in front of the city hall, when they heard the screaming. They saw the man in black go running down the Avenue dos Aliados, and they thought it must be a terrorist attack. They assumed guns would be involved. I had to explain that there were no guns, no terrorists, it was “simply” a robbery.

American-style gun violence doesn’t exist here. The average murder rate in the US per 100,000 people is 6.9; in Portugal the average is 0.7 overall, and 0.5 here in the North. Though I couldn’t understand most of what the crowd was saying, I’m quite sure the men were not discussing how many guns they own and whether Portuguese citizens should have a permit to carry. That’s not to say there is no crime, but it’s generally of the non-violent nature. The hoards of tourists leads to pick-pocketing and a few purse snatchings. Porto is an international port city. Adjacent Matosinhos has a busy shipping harbor, with all the smuggling of drugs and people that come with it.

A day later, I remain frustrated that there was not some way I could have slowed the bad guy down enough for others to catch him.

I was so close! I wasn’t about to try anything that was dangerous, but I was just a few feet away from being able to trip him. Which brings me back to those aerial thieves, the gulls. When they spot available food, they broadcast a victorious “found a prize” call. Any gulls nearby immediately circle in to view the catch. Imagine if we trained them to circle in on demand, chasing thieves with raucous second-by-second updates, while marking their heads with a few well-aimed gull bombs. We could solve crimes and make gulls heroes instead of pests. Maybe even give them little police badge bracelets to wear.

Porto, I hereby volunteer to head up a committee for this. With the help of the best bird scientists, we could make this a better world for gulls and citizens. It might take some generations of selective gull breeding, but if we can train cats, we can surely train gulls.

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