https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/nov/16/bear-hazing-drones
"The first time that Terry Vandenbos watched a bear run from a drone, on a
spring day two years ago, he was chasing the animal himself. After he saw the
grizzly cross a road near his property, the Montana rancher hopped on his
all-terrain vehicle, planning to scare it away from his cattle if needed.
But the bear began sprinting away when he was still far from it, looking over
its shoulder as it ran, and Vandenbos looked up too; overhead, a small drone
was following the bear, its four propellers emitting a high-pitched whine as it
sent the animal towards a nearby lake.
“I don’t think I need to be here,” Vandenbos remembers thinking. He drove back
home. The bear never touched his cows.
On the other end of that drone was Wesley Sarmento, a former grizzly bear
management specialist for Montana’s department of fish, wildlife and parks
(MFWP) who has spent the last six years testing different non-lethal methods
for scaring bears away from human habitation, a practice commonly referred to
as “hazing”. In research forthcoming in the journal
Frontiers of Conservation
Science, Sarmento – now a PhD student at the University of Montana – shows
that aerial drones outperformed all other hazing methods tested in his
experiments. They provide a way to move grizzly bears away from humans that is
safe for humans and animals alike.
“The drone’s become a tool where I can’t see doing the job without it now,”
Sarmento said. “It’s just that handy.”"
Via
Reasons to be Cheerful:
<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/what-were-reading-heat-resistant-corals/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
