KEY POINTS:
Seagulls gorging themselves on greasy junk food are so fat it is affecting their reproduction.
University of Tasmania researcher Heidi Auman has found that silver gulls feeding on fatty scraps thrown to them from seaside cafes in Hobart have become overweight.
Ms Auman has been comparing city birds to those on the remote Furneaux Islands, off Tasmania's north-east, as part of her PhD for almost four years.
She said the urban gulls were about 10 per cent fatter and had higher cholesterol, which was leading to poor-quality eggs and a possible nosedive in their populations.
Ms Auman, who has studied human impacts on sea birds for 20 years, said the roly-poly gulls were still able to fly but the junk food was having the same effect on them as it does on humans.
- AAP
