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Canadian City Uses Drone To Chase Off Geese
LeadSongDog writes "The Ottawa Citizen reports on an enterprising private contractor who has been hired by a city government in Canada to drive geese off its island beaches using a small, remote-controlled drone. 'It’s proving amazingly effective, said Orléans Coun. Bob Monette. The place used to be haunted by as many as 140 geese, which can eat several pounds of grass in a day and poop out nearly as much in waste. “Now we’re down to anywhere from 15 to 20 on a daily basis,” Monette said. The weapon the city’s deployed is a “hexcopter,” a remote-controlled chopper with rotors that can hover, soar, circle and — most importantly — scoot along just above the ground, scaring the bejesus out of dozing geese. It’s operated by contractor Steve Wambolt, a former IT worker who launched his own business after one too many layoffs. “When he takes it out, they put their backs up straight and they’re watching,” Monette said. “When he starts it and it goes up off the ground, they sort of walk into a formation, and as soon as it starts moving, they all take off and they don’t come back until the next day.”'"
Another example of government tyranny.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Which is kind of like predicting colder temperatures in winter.
Hell, I was in Myrtle Beach this year ... and there they were: Canadian Geese, honking, eating, and pooping, and then honking, eating and pooping some more for good measure. Because, well, that's what they do.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
this isn't affecting the migration just dispersing the floc from a beach/park there is no shortage of available space on the river or bay for them to move on too, they just hang out there because people leave stuff for them to eat, if anything this is beneficial to the birds also to keep them a little further away from the public
I'm sensing a lot of people use the word 'drone' where 'R/C Plane', a decades-old technology, is more appropriate, simply because it sounds cooler. Is the a technical dividing line between the two?
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Is a model plane now a drone? What about a paper airplane? Is an RC car a "land drone"? If I have a Capsela model in the bathtub with me, did I create a "water drone"?
It's a tsunami of hyperbole.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
You won't think Canada Geese are so much of a goddamned treasure when you live in an area where they stay year-round, grow to flocks of hundreds, poison every waterway in sight, and leave a carpet of goose-shit everywhere. They're a fucking nuisance in a LOT of places, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act desperately needs to be amended to make it legal to kill the fucking things. They have WAY overpopulated in large portions of North America.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Is it just me, or are we starting to use "drone" for pretty much anything that doesn't have a pilot actually sitting in it today?
AFAIK, "drone" is really an autonomous vehicle that for at least SOME of its flight time, it's not directly under pilot control.
I mean, it sure SOUNDS a lot cooler to say they use a "drone" than "a big radio control plane".
-Styopa
While amusing in this case, this treaty would likely not apply.
The statute in the treaty makes it unlawful without a waiver to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill or sell birds listed therein ("migratory birds"). This includes the Canadian Goose. Piloting a drone into the middle of a stationary flock of geese constitutes none of these things. If the drone operator actually followed the birds, then yes, that would be "pursuing", but simply scaring the birds by flying into the midst of them as they are eating and pooping and doing other bird things wouldn't break the treaty, as far as I can tell.
The only place in Alaska that geese stay year-round is near Juneau, as far as I know. But in places where they do stay year-round, like further down the coast, they can be a real pain. Their year-round residency is because of human habitat modification, making open green lawns that are highly appealing to them. They should be migrating but, like hummingbirds, decide to stay all year because of the easy food.
No the problem is that we humans have killed off all their natural predators and don't have the balls to man-up and replace them. We have the same problem with deer in the area. People have stopped hunting deer, we've killed off all the wolves (because we tend not to like the idea of them attacking our kids and pets and shit)--and so they overpopulated and start becoming a nuisance.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Do you have any idea how many millions of square miles in the US (much less Canada) are untouched by humans? Well over 90% of the US is undeveloped land. No, the geese aren't going to the "few locations untouched by humans", they're flocking to locations occupied by humans because humans chase away their predators and keep climate variations (especially during winter) to a minimum, to the point where many geese are no longer even bothering to migrate. Chasing them away from human habitations would do more to restore their natural patterns than to disrupt them.
Plus, geese are vicious bastards who'll attack and chase animals much much larger than themselves. And they poop like crazy.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
I used to work for a company that tried to market a tool to keep animals off the highway. But testing revealed that wild animals can become used to almost any stimulus over time. So the tool will work great for a while, then eventually fail. Drones are the same. Eventually the geese will learn not to fear the drone, and then they will happily munch away while it buzzes them. So this is a short term solution at best.
These things are a menace. I lived in Colorado and they would routinely plant themselves into our apartment complex public space, making it unusable for long stretches of winter.
If *you* think it's unusable now, how do you think the Geese feel about an apartment complex taking over *their* public space?
If you were stupid enough to wander into the park area, a host of them would waddle up to you and attack, and they left a huge amount of green goose crap all over the place. If I had thought of using one of those little toy helicopters at the time to scare em off, I would have.
I think the problem with the drone plan is that just like how the Geese got used to humans in your apartment complex and now show no fear of them, they'll eventually get used to the drones unless the drones start attacking and killing them.
Perhaps if humans hadn't encroached on their natural habitat they wouldn't be such a nuisance.
I'm going to just call you a damned idiot. The reason why we have so many canadian geese now is because the government back in the 70's instituted programs to reduce hunting and protect them. It's the same reason why you find deer in suburban areas, where the areas haven't expanded, and the population in the wild has exploded so much that they're starving to death due to a lack of predators. A very fine example of over populations of deer in the US: Michigan, and Ohio.
Up here in Canadaland, we have an assload of wetland areas. There are three in my area where the geese stay all winter, they never used to. They stay because the provincial government got this brilliant idea to feed the damned things all winter long. Carpet of goose shit indeed, we don't use drones here, we use starter pistols and blanks in shotguns and rifles to scare them away.
Om, nomnomnom...
These things are a menace. I lived in Colorado and they would routinely plant themselves into our apartment complex public space, making it unusable for long stretches of winter.
If *you* think it's unusable now, how do you think the Geese feel about an apartment complex taking over *their* public space?
If you were stupid enough to wander into the park area, a host of them would waddle up to you and attack, and they left a huge amount of green goose crap all over the place. If I had thought of using one of those little toy helicopters at the time to scare em off, I would have.
I think the problem with the drone plan is that just like how the Geese got used to humans in your apartment complex and now show no fear of them, they'll eventually get used to the drones unless the drones start attacking and killing them.
Actually, they probably won't. The reason for this is that the drone is using a standard bird of prey flight attack vector. This should also be fairly successful against seagulls and pigeons (although due to the lack of flocking of those two birds, others will quickly return to take the place of those who left).
These things are a menace. I lived in Colorado and they would routinely plant themselves into our apartment complex public space, making it unusable for long stretches of winter.
If *you* think it's unusable now, how do you think the Geese feel about an apartment complex taking over *their* public space?
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Actually the geese were not there before the apartment complex was built, building code in many areas requires a retaining pond for the down spout water to collect and naturally be absorbed into the ground. Geese love these ponds and will nest all around them.
Do you have any idea how many millions of square miles in the US (much less Canada) are untouched by humans? Well over 90% of the US is undeveloped land.
Those are two entirely different things. Untouched by humans would indicate that the land is in its natural state, and if you use that definition it is a lot closer to 0% than 90%. It may be undeveloped and unused, but the wetlands have been mostly destroyed, and the megafauna slaughtered. These both have a massive effect on the ecology, sometimes for hundreds or even thousands of miles around.
Considering that geese bury *everything* under a mound of goose crap...
They are Canadian Geese so the Constitution doens't apply
Eh? They're loud, obnoxious, and leave shit everywhere. Clearly they're American. ;)
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