{"id":10739,"date":"2013-08-25T07:00:56","date_gmt":"2013-08-25T11:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=10739"},"modified":"2013-08-23T13:39:14","modified_gmt":"2013-08-23T17:39:14","slug":"drone-disturbs-peace-of-nuisance-canada-geese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2013\/08\/25\/drone-disturbs-peace-of-nuisance-canada-geese\/","title":{"rendered":"Drone disturbs peace of nuisance Canada geese"},"content":{"rendered":"

NCPR has looked at efforts to discourage, or “haze”, nuisance birds in the past, as with\u00a0crows in Watertown<\/a>, or Canada Geese at Ottawa’s Experimental Farm<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A radio-controlled hexacopter can be pretty intimidating. Photo: unten44<\/a>, Creative Commons, some rights reserved<\/p><\/div>\n

Here’s another tactic that utilizes a remote controlled helicopter, as\u00a0reported by David Reevely for the Ottawa Citizen (with a video<\/a>).\u00a0Orl\u00e9ans-area Ottawa\u00a0City Councillor, Bob Monette, is pleased with a new trial project that seems to effectively discourage what used to be as many as 140 geese congregating and pooping at\u00a0Petrie Island beaches:<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we\u2019re down to anywhere from 15 to 20 on a daily basis,\u201d Monette said. The weapon the city\u2019s deployed is a \u201chexcopter,\u201d a remote-controlled chopper with rotors that can hover, soar, circle and \u2014 most importantly \u2014 scoot along just above the ground, scaring the bejesus out of dozing geese. It\u2019s operated by contractor Steve Wambolt, a former IT worker who launched his own business after one too many layoffs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This story was picked up by Fox news<\/a> in the U.S. and the Telegraph<\/a> in the U.K. – probably because the term “drone strikes” was used in some versions of the story. An eye-catching notion, no? That placid Canada is calling down drone strikes against geese.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile NPR reports that a small\u00a0town in Colorado hopes to make a point<\/a>\u00a0– and raise some money – with a ballot measure authorizing the sale of hunting licenses to shoot at drones. But in this case of an Ottawa beach patrol, the term “drone” is journalistic over-kill. It’s a small helicopter fitted up with lights and sound, not explosives.<\/p>\n

Radio-controlled models have been popular for decades. The hobby requires a certain learning curve and the equipment can be expensive. Only a few years ago, flying RC helicopters required even more advanced skills<\/a> and could be quite costly.\u00a0These days the range and cost of what’s available is getting wider and cheaper all the time. Here’s more from a site devoted to RC helicopters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While improvements can be pretty exciting for the flier, that also means we can expect to see more and more of these things in the sky, doing everything from harassing birds to snapping photos.<\/p>\n

Canada geese may not be the only ones annoyed by a proliferation of gizmos that buzz, fly and “haze.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NCPR has looked at efforts to discourage, or “haze”, nuisance birds in the past, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[880,11688,11515,884,13351,13352],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10739"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10739"}],"version-history":[{"count":51,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10890,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10739\/revisions\/10890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}