A fleet of drones patrolling New York City’s beaches for signs of sharks and struggling swimmers is drawing backlash from an aggressive group of seaside residents: local shorebirds.
Since the drones began flying in May, flocks of birds have repeatedly swarmed the devices, forcing the police department and other city agencies to adjust their flight plans. While the attacks have slowed, they have not stopped completely, fueling concern from wildlife experts about the impact on threatened species nesting along the coast.
Veronica Welsh, a wildlife coordinator at the Parks Department, said the birds were “very annoyed by the drones” from the moment they arrived on the beach.
Y’all are making a joke out of this headline but it really sucks
But he was quick to raise a far more dire possibility: that the drones could prompt a stress response in some birds that causes them to flee the beach and abandon their eggs, as several thousand elegant terns did following a recent drone crash in San Diego.
It’s honestly so horrible that this was approved. Drones are banned in National Parks for a reason. Birds have very few beach areas left where they can nest.
I fly drones for work and seagulls in particular are always checking it out and being all aggressive around it. Fuckers can’t fly upwards nearly as fast as the drone though so it’s easy enough to leave them in the dust. They never actually make contact though but it’s still annoying.
wow you suck. drones are really terrible for birds. least you could do is have empathy, but nah.
One stole my chips once
Us humans stole pretty much all their habitat.
I wanted that chip bad enough that I stomped on the bird.
Oh wow so cool and edgy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_bird_species_since_1500
About 129 species of birds have become extinct since 1500,[1] and the rate of extinction seems to be increasing.
It’s tragic. People get up in arms about tomato soup on famous paintings … this is even worse because every species taken out of the ecosystem is a lost node in a complex web that sustains us, lost species represent a loss of learning about the world we live in. There are so many interesting behaviors, chemical pathways, beautiful animals, who are going to be gone forever.