The more drones reach out to the skies, the more problems people are having with them. Drones are straying into airports, traveling onto people’s property, and can be a huge nuisance in the wrong hands. That’s why Dutch police are searching into ways to control drones. There are ideas to remotely hack them, shoot them out of the sky with nets, and the most interesting solution involves having birds of prey take them down. Dutch police are using trained eagles to hunt down and destroy drones.
“It’s a low-tech solution to a high-tech problem,” spokesman Dennis Janus of the Netherlands’ national police force. “People sometimes think it’s a hoax, but it’s proving very effective so far.”
The eagles are trained and provided by Guard From Above, a company that worked with the police to develop the concept of using eagles to take down drones that stray into no-fly zones around sporting events and airports. There are still issues related to it, like the long-term effect of drone hunting on the birds, how the birds would perform in the wild, and the cost of training the birds–who apparently go through a lot of drones. Other than that, it’s basically the same as hawking, just with the birds taking down plastic and metal rather than flesh and blood. Once the birds are trained to attack drones like prey, apparently they have no problems.
Tags: eagles trained to fight drones, eagles take down drones, drones, dutch police use eagles to destroy drones, dennis janus, guard from above, eagle drones, dutch, the netherlands, unusual animals, law and order