A streak in the air over Lake Michigan caused one cold eagle to win poorly and one government drone to mingle and sink.
Hunter King, a drone pilot with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, explored an area of the lake near the state’s top peninsula last month when the drone began “cruel twirling” after it indicated that a propeller was torn out.
“When he looked up, the drone was gone, and a nobility flew away,” said the department, whose name is abbreviated EGLE
A couple who regularly spend time watching eagles go to sea monsters in the area witnessed the battle, but were surprised when they learned it was a drone that was down in battle, the department said.
Mr. King and the couple searched for hours for the $ 950 drone, the department said, and a second operator of the department, Arthur Ostaszewski, later brought a kayak and snorkeling gear to search the plane, which was a little more than one. foot measurement over.
Struggling to find the drone in the storm water, Mr. Ostaszewski closed the snorkel and shoved two hours into the muck in a roasting-like pattern “like I was playing Battleship and wanted to cover the whole board,” the department said.
The battle occurred 162 feet above the water and the drone fell at a speed of 20.4 miles per hour, according to flight records sent by the drone in its final moments.
The department speculated that the nobility may have been attacked because of a territorial dispute because he was hungry “or perhaps did not like his name being spelled incorrectly.”
Julia Ponder, executive director of the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota, said on Saturday that it was likely because the drone had invaded the eagle’s territory.
“They are the king of the skies,” she said.
In 2016, a Dutch police force deployed sea eagles to take down illegal drones that could fly over public events if endangering visits to dignitaries. The eagles were trained to see drones as prey – rewarded with a piece of meat after successful imprisonment – and were enclosed with claw guards for field battles with larger drones.
Ms Ponder said that in most exchanges more eagles form a drone than vice versa, although curious pilots flying the aircraft over eagles’ nests could cause harmful disturbances.
In general, attacks do not attack anywhere in the air, Ms. Ponder said: They scavenge for food or catch fish from the water.
Populations of bald eagles have recovered in recent decades. Since 1963, after a fall of about 400 nestlings in the continental United States, the population is now estimated at tens of thousands, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They were removed from the federal list of endangered species in 2007.
