蜜芽传媒

Australia is in the midst of its magpie swooping season, as the birds aggressively defend their nests while they are breeding. But experts are now warning that mask-wearing may lead to more people being attacked by the birds.

Darryl Jones is a behavioural ecologist and expert on magpies at Australia鈥檚 Griffith University. He told Newsday:

鈥淭he males keep predators away and start to victimise people. Magpies who attack pedestrians almost always attack the same people and they recognize them by their facial features. And so the wearing of masks seems to be making it hard to distinguish between people, so they are attacking the whole lot.鈥�

鈥淭hey are a risk and there have been some terrible injuries.鈥�

He said however that people get upset about the idea of culls because 鈥渕ost of the time people absolutely love these birds, apart from when they turn on us in a very aggressive way.鈥�

Photo: A magpie swoops a cyclist in Newcastle, Australia (Getty Images)