Ducklings rescued from a storm drain by police with help from a DJI Mini 2

We’ve seen law enforcement use drones in many different ways to keep the peace or search and rescue, but now you can add saving ducklings from a storm drain to that list.

The Alameda County Sheriff shared that they, alongside the Dublin Police Department, rescued a family of ducklings after falling into a storm drain. The Dublin Police used DJI’s Mini 2 to fly down into the storm drain to check to see where the ducklings were.

Taking advantage of the Mini 2’s small size, the pilot was able to tell that the ducklings didn’t run far down the drain. The intel gathered by DJI‘s extremely capable sub-250 gram drone allowed officers to rescue the ducklings quickly.

The ducklings are safe and healthy, and they will be released back into the wild at a future date.

We might be used to seeing law enforcement agencies using large drones like DJI’s new M30 or other more enterprise solutions, but drones like the Mini 2 can still be useful. While designed to be light and portable for travel bloggers and photographers, the small size of most sub-250 gram drones is perfect for flying in tight and hard-to-reach locations for search and rescue operations.

DJI’s Mini 2 is rumored to be replaced with a third iteration, which you can read about here.