Pigeon Versus Gull page 2

A comic featuring Phillip Gerba and Shannon Haddock observing a pigeon snatching away a crust of bread from a seagull. The seagull chaces the pigeon, but the pigeon evades the gull with it's supirior agility. Shannon and Phillip take this as evedance of the reletive success of pigeons over seagulls in New York City.

I'm pretty sure that solves the mystery of why there are so many pigeons in NYC and so few seagulls once you leave the shore. This is based only on my observations, such as the one depicted in this story, so there my be other reasons for the disparity between pigeon and seagull populations in NYC.