The European Gull Screeching Championship Is the Competition You Didn’t Know You Needed

Move over Super Bowl, there's a new highly competitive contest in town. Unlike football, this championship doesn't involve pushing your body to the limits. Instead, it just requires you to have some very finely tuned vocal cords that are capable of producing what is arguably one of the most irritating sounds in the world: A seagull screech.

That's right, people are lining up to compete to see who can reproduce the most lifelike screech, and the results are actually really entertaining.

Contestants flocked (pun intended) to a small Belgium town to strut their stuff during the European gull screeching championship. Continue reading to learn more about the contest, including which person took home the title of the continent's number one gull screecher.

People came from all over the country to the coastal town of De Panne, Belgian, where they dressed up like seagulls to compete to see who had the most realistic sounding screech.

All told, 60 different people, representing 14 different countries, came together to try their luck. The CBC says that the event was hosted by the Gernoare café, where people entered into three different categories of competition.

Each contestant was sorted into a group, which included adult, junior, and colony. From there, a jury was tasked with rating the performances, awarding points on certain metrics, before crowning a winner.

While this contest may sound like a hilarious way to spend an afternoon, organizers say that it's actually meant to serve as a reminder of the conservation efforts being made to protect the gulls.

According to CBC, gull populations are declining around the world thanks to a loss of habitats. Organizers are hoping to remind people just how important seagulls are to the coast, and how they play an essential role in the region's ecosystem.

Each category had a winner, but the most notable among them was the adult winner, who had a heart wrenching reason for throwing herself into the spirit of the competition. Anna Brynald told the CBC that a devastating personal loss reminded her of the importance of following her dreams. After Brynald's best friend died, she decided she needed to make having fun a priority. As such, she started preparing for the contest, which involved spending a lot of time with these furry creatures.

"I worked with the seagulls. I went to the beach and I looked at many seagulls, and I thought they looked nice. And I screeched at them, but they became scared of me," she told the publication. "Maybe I'm saying something wrong in seagull language. I don't know."

It sounds like Brynald may be the person to beat next year, since she's already making a plan to defend her title.

"I think next year, if I participate next year I'll be even better," she told CBC. "I'll, first of all, not be sick. And I think I'll need some more feathers," she added of her elaborate costume, which we would argue sealed the deal for her first place ranking.

Hopefully she'll get the chance, we'd love to see what she could pull off with even more time to practice and hone her craft.