If we ever needed persuading that animals are smarter than technology, we should take heed of the drone-fighting eagles. Scotland Yard is examining the deployment of bald eagles by Dutch police after a private security firm demonstrated how the mighty birds can deftly pluck a drone out of the sky.
The drone featured in the video I’ve watched is a pretty feeble-looking specimen. The eagle easily avoids the blades and takes its plastic prey away for a mauling.
Dutch police say this solution is less hazardous than shooting down drones that deliver drugs to prisons or menace planes (UK authorities recorded 30 near misses with aircraft in 2015).
The superpowers of animals have long been used in conflict, from bomb-sniffing dogs to the mine-detecting dolphins unleashed by the US navy. Homing pigeons carried crucial messages during both world wars; one of the only ways the enemy could disable these speedy messengers was to attack them with hawks, as the German army attempted during the Franco-Prussian war.
The superpowers of animals have long been used in conflict, from bomb-sniffing dogs to mine-detecting dolphins
Wild things have an intrinsic right to existence, regardless of the functions they may perform for us, but drone-fighting eagles are a useful reminder that we can’t possibly predict the future utility of wild animals – or plants – and we would be wise to preserve as many of them as possible.
In Britain, this means letting birds of prey back into our landscapes, as James Macdonald Lockhart argues in Raptor, a new book published this week. Hen harriers continue to be illegally killed for eating grouse before we can shoot them ourselves, and many people hate resurgent buzzards and red kites, wrongly blaming them for disappearing songbirds.
Put simply, prey species – food supply – will ultimately determine the number of predators, and so a sparrowhawk in your garden shows small birds are thriving. Here’s hoping that drones make excellent prey for a new band of crime-fighting eagles.
