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Commercial-Mining Drones Keep Getting Attacked By Eagles (abc.net.au)
An anonymous reader summarizes an article from ABC News:
The world's seventh-biggest gold producer has lost more than nine drones because of eagle attacks. "People couldn't believe I was able to get such a good photo of an eagle airborne," complained surveyor Rick Steven at a conference sponsored by the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. "But I didn't... Another eagle took that photo... I was getting attacked by two eagles simultaneously." The specially-constructed drones carry a $10,000 camera for high-resolution photos and equipment that produces high-detail contour maps of potential mining areas, and so far the company estimates they've lost more than $100,000 worth of technology to eagle attacks. They've tried camouflage -- including disguising the drones as another eagle -- but unfortunately, according to Stevens, the eagle is the "natural enemy" of the drone.
One drone's video is interrupted by the sudden appearance of an eagle, followed almost immediately by footage from the ground by a sideways drone camera. That video -- included in the article -- ends with a reminder that "Eagle attacks on drones have been documented across the world, to the point where some European police forces are now training them to take down unauthorized aircraft."
One drone's video is interrupted by the sudden appearance of an eagle, followed almost immediately by footage from the ground by a sideways drone camera. That video -- included in the article -- ends with a reminder that "Eagle attacks on drones have been documented across the world, to the point where some European police forces are now training them to take down unauthorized aircraft."
I'm only worried about them and don't give a shit about the drones. Can they get hurt by the attacks?
Big eyes on the top like you put on a hat. Have to do the same thing with Mississippi Kites. If they can track motion, even better.
No, but sharpening the propeller blades will take care of the problem. Buy your props from Ginsu.
I love drones, but do not fuck with the eagles. I love them better.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Your mining drones just have to be protected. If you want to use scout drones, Hobgoblins are generally regarded as the best.
No worries about getting in trouble using a gun against damn drones over your property, just take up falconry or have a sympathetic neighbor who does
I'm on the side of the eagles on this one.
Why is Snark Required?
After flying RC planes/helicopters/quads for decades you learn that flying above a bird of prey is considered an aggressive dominating move and they will almost always counter to defend their territory and reestablish dominance. If you fly below them like the other smaller birds they consider you prey and rarely attack because you are not their familiar favorite meal.
they are good at killing the junk from china
On the other hand, if someone told the Chinese that eagle feather is rare and difficult to obtain, the eagle would disappear quickly. See what a good job they're doing with the elephants - 50 years old elephants that weigh a ton or more get killed for 40 pounds of ivory that gets sold in Beijing; in 10 years elephants will be a thing of the past. If they could do that to eagles it would save those mining companies a lot of money. Win-win, except for the animals.
lucm, indeed.
Me it's RC boats. I live in a city so it's the cheapest, quickest way to get my RC nerdery done. Apparently, for a dog's visual cortex, this:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OdtfMNj...
looks like the most delicious roast chicken a dog could ever want. As soon as I put the boat in the water, every dog around will jump into the water and desperately swim after the stupid thing. Now I warn dog owners before I put the boat in the water!
One day a guy shows up with a Husky. He tells me not to worry, Huskies don't like the water. OK, fine. After he told me he never thought he'd see his dog chest-deep in the water! It was true however that this dog didn't go any further and didn't actually swim for it. But he also didn't expect to have to towel down his dog!
Mostly random stuff.
... I've hated this retarded construction: "More than" + some weird number -- high, specific, not round.
"The world's seventh-biggest gold producer has lost more than nine drones because of eagle attacks."
So... ten drones, then?
I just heard "over 46" somethings earlier tonight. That would be 47, I suppose?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I don't think it's a matter of the characteristics of the drone so much that it's intruding on it's territory. Birds can be quite territorial. I've seen smaller birds spend days attacking a "rival male" in its territory, banging into a window over and over (and over and over... I was getting close to pulling a shotgun on the little bastard).
Honestly, I'm not really convinced there's much of anything to be done short of making a stealth drone so quiet and tiny that it won't be noticed (good luck with that, as there's a reason for the phrase "eagle-eyed"), or using a drone so large and intimidating it won't be attacked.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
To be fair - these are gold prospectors, and very little mined gold goes into electronics (and less every year). Frankly if we limited gold use to actually doing stuff with it, we could supply ourselves for the next 5000 years or so with what we've already mined. Nearly all the gold they find will get dug out at great energy and cost, smelted down at great energy and cost... then after going to all that trouble to get it out of the ground... locked up in an underground vault and guarded at great energy and cost for ever.
Gold mining is the single most uselessly fucking stupid thing humans do.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *