Venice: Tourists given water pistols to scare away seagulls
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Seagulls are known for being cheeky and often pinching food!
Have you ever had a cheeky seagull follow you around or swoop in and try and steal your food when you've been outside?
Well, the birds have become so confident in the Italian city of Venice in recent years that some hotels have now resorted to drastic action.
They've been leaving orange water pistols in rooms for tourists to use to try and keep them away when they're out in the city.
However just the sight of them is helping scare off the gulls - as they apparently don't like the colour!
The Italian city of Venice is famous for its canals and is popular with tourists
The birds have been so naughty stealing food that local hotels in Venice got together to see how they could help tourists stop getting attacked by the birds!
They wanted to find a way of putting the birds off in an un-cruel way.
Some of the other ideas discussed were using a smell which was unpleasant for the birds but which humans wouldn't be able to detect or hiring hawks to scare away the seagulls.
But in the end they decided to try orange water pistols after being told that gulls dislike the colour.
Seagulls are one of the few animals that are able to drink salt water! They have special glands which are located above the eyes which allow them to get rid of excess salt from the body.
It seems the water pistols are working well, so well in fact, that tourists don't even need to squirt water from them!
One of the hotel staff, Paolo Lorenzini told Italian media, "As soon as they see the pistols, they fly away.
"You don't even need to use them, you just need to keep them on the table."
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