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AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands Eagle has been man’s hunting companion for hundreds of years. And time has come to once again harness the powerful force of nature and use the bird’s proverbial keen eyesight and lethal hunting instincts to bring down rogue drones flying over the sky.
A Dutch company, “Guard From Above”, is training eagles to provide a natural deterrent to illegally operating drone and Dutch police are partnering with the firm as its first customer.
As tensions mount over civilian usage of drones in the UK, London’s Metropolitan Police is considering using eagles to snatch illicit quadcopters out of the sky.
Last week, a Dutch security company—Guard From Above—released a video (embedded below) of an eagle easily grabbing a flying drone with its talons. The country’s national police, who partnered with Guard From Above to train the eagles, is looking at the feasibility of using the birds in real-life aircraft-intercept scenarios. Seemingly, the Met Police saw the video and decided that it wanted in on the action as well.
Looking at the video it’s hard to believe that the eagle’s talons aren’t damaged by the quad’s propellers—but that isn’t the case, according to the security company’s CEO. “These birds are used to meeting resistance from animals they hunt in the wild, and they don’t seem to have much trouble with the drones,” Sjoerd Hoogendoorn told Reuters. Their talons are strong enough and tough enough to grab most consumer-grade drones, he added.READ MORE
SOURCE: arstechnica.com
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