I just snorted up my coffee laughing at this video.
This! is how you clear a crowded beach. 
I’m sure no birds were hurt filming this video.
Hm.
So was it for real , or was the video faked? I can easily figure out how to make a video saying that I had done this, using actors splashed with faux poo and “shaky cam” filming that added verisimiltude (especially of supposed adolescent boy’s filming). It’d be easier, more photogenic, and more reliable than actually feeding laxatives to seagulls. An no worries about arrests. Yet you get the word-of-mouth (or of-internet) advantage of a viral campaign for your internet service.
I’m a little skeptical. Not sure how fast the digestive tracts of seabirds work, so I have no idea if laced food would have that great or immediate an effect. Personally, I doubt it works that well.
I’m also skeptical. Wouldn’t the showerees have an instinct to remove themselves? Using foot-based locomotion of the fastest velocity in order to maximize the distance between them and the ordnance.
<shrug> There were a lot of people looking up at the sky and running in the video. It could be faked with enough extras. But why bother? Birds have short digestive tracks. I’d expect that food goes in/out pretty quick.
It says a lot about the Daily Mail and its readers that the teens who did this are considered “sick” but the video of the results is “hilarious”.
I don’t think the video is all that funny at all.
Plus, making animals sick for fun is not funny either.
I guess my age is showing when my first thought is Flock of Seagulls + laxatives == * Worst Concert Ever *.
I thought that Flock of Seagulls had licensed their music to a laxative manufacturer, and a commercial using “I Ran” had been uploaded…
The “why bother” is because you are by no means guaranteed, if you actually pulled this stunt off, that a.) The seagulls would react the way you wanted, and in fairly short order; b,.) that they’d choose as targets the very photogenic bunch to poop on, or that you’d be in the right place at the right time with your camera to catch it.; c.) that you wouldn’t get in trouble for your efforts. You could easily spend a lot of time and film looking at uncooperative gulls, or gulls who pooped an hour later, elsewhere, or happened to be too far away when your – you should pardon the expression – your money shots came in.
It’s a helluva lot easier to get an actor in a white-splattered pair of pants to walk by as you filmed him with your shaking camera, and you could set up the shots as you want. And there weren’t “:crowds” – there were only a couple of reavcting people per shot.