As published by The Guardian (link to the full story is here):
"A German wildlife rescue project is deploying small aerial drones to find young deer hiding in tall grass and protect them from being shredded by combine harvesters cutting hay in spring.
According to project spokesman Rolf Stockum, the pilot scheme has shown great promise in spotting the young animals. About 100,000 of them fall victim in Germany every year to the large agricultural machines, he said on Friday."
Comments
I truly hope this proves to be a useful and effective method, it is certainly a positive use of UAVs.
It does seem to me that inexpensive Far IR cameras attached to the combine harvesters themselves might also be a good method of dealing with it (presuming the farmers were willing to stop the harvester to save a fawn).
And with the inexpensive Flir Iphone camera add on recently introduced I would think you might easily put together an early fawn (hot body) warning alarm for a tractor.
Of course you can use them on the UAVs too.
Just a thought.
Best Regards,
Gary
Excelent, I know someone who uses a cuad with a FLIR to find deer for his hunter friends during hunting season :)
100,000 is a terrible number! That is a shock to hear!