Over the last few weeks or so, we came across this photo of a drone-catching eagle many, many times on social media. What is the background story here? Where did this photo come from? Snopes found out. Jump in to learn more.
The Dutch police started using eagles to intercept drones back in 2016. What initially seemed to be a very successful approach to defense against suspicious unmanned aerial vehicles has now been halted. No longer will eagles be used by law enforcement to take drones out of the skies in the Netherlands.
Flying a drone in Australia comes with an additional risk and it is called the Australian wedge-tailed eagle. These birds are the ultimate alpha aggressor in the Ozzy skies and will attack a drone without any hesitation, as Daniel Parfitt recently experienced. For a two-day mapping job in the Australian Outback, Parfitt was flying a roughly $80,000 drone with a 7 feet wingspan, looking like a stealth bomber. As told the WSJ [paywall], he thought the drone would be too large for the Wedgies, as these birds are called by the locals, but he was wrong.