It seems that the seaside hen inhabitants of New York Metropolis is totally fed up with a lately deployed armada of police drones which can be encroaching on their territory. A report from the Related Press describes repeated “swarming” incidents through which the indignant shorebirds have dive-bombed the flying robots in an try to expel them from their residence.
Earlier this 12 months, the NYPD made the questionable resolution to start deploying drones on the metropolis’s seashores. The purpose was to permit them to seek for sharks (in order to warn beachgoers and keep away from a Jaws-type scenario) and likewise to assist swimmers who may be struggling, and who have been out of attain of the native lifeguard. The plan, apparently, was to have the robots fly over drowning swimmers and drop flotation units on their heads.
Whereas the drones have to this point saved zero human lives, they’ve managed to significantly agitate the native hen inhabitants, which has been repeatedly seen “swarming” and dive-bombing the flying robots. The AP quotes a number of wildlife teachers and professionals, most of whom appear to assume that the drones are having some sort of hostile impact on the seaside birds. Consultants say the birds may even see the robots as an invasive species, one that could be a menace to their offspring.
Veronica Welsh, a wildlife skilled on the metropolis’s Parks Division, informed the outlet that the birds are “very aggravated by the drones” and “will fly at it, they’ll swoop at it, they’ll be vocalizing…They assume they’re defending their chicks from a predator.”
The article additionally quotes a wildlife biology professor from McGill College who, fairly amazingly, is known as David Chicken. Chicken, the hen professor, tells us that the birds in query, recognized technically as American oystercatchers, can also be triggered by the flying robots into having a “stress response,” which, he stated, might trigger them to “flee the seaside and abandon their eggs, as a number of thousand elegant terns did following a recent drone crash in San Diego.”
Oystercatchers, the native populations of which primarily nest on Rockaway seaside, “are extremely endangered” stated Chicken, entire additionally added that if “they abandon their nests due to the drones, that may be a catastrophe.”
Gizmodo reached out to the NYPD for extra info on its drone program however didn’t obtain an instantaneous response.
Replace, July 12, 3:46 p.m. ET: Now we have up to date this submit to mirror the truth that the birds on this story should not, the truth is, seagulls. We remorse the error, but additionally I’m not an ornithologist, folks.
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