As tensions mount over civilian usage of drones in the UK, London's Metropolitan Police is considering using eagles to snatch illicit quadcopters out of the sky.
Last week, a Dutch security company—Guard From Above—released a video (embedded below) of an eagle easily grabbing a flying drone with its talons. The country's national police, who partnered with Guard From Above to train the eagles, is looking at the feasibility of using the birds in real-life aircraft-intercept scenarios. Seemingly, the Met Police saw the video and decided that it wanted in on the action as well.
Looking at the video it's hard to believe that the eagle's talons aren't damaged by the quad's propellers—but that isn't the case, according to the security company's CEO. "These birds are used to meeting resistance from animals they hunt in the wild, and they don't seem to have much trouble with the drones," Sjoerd Hoogendoorn told Reuters. Their talons are strong enough and tough enough to grab most consumer-grade drones, he added.
Still, an external research group will rule on the potential impact to the birds' welfare before they can be used by the police. It's also unknown how well the eagles will perform when a large crowd of people is present.
Clearly, more testing will be required before the Dutch or the British decide to police their skies with drones—a thought that Hoogendoorn clearly doesn't cherish: "The real problem we have is that they destroy a lot of drones," he said. "It's a major cost of testing."
A Met Police spokesperson said: "... we take an interest in all innovative new ideas and will of course be looking at the work of the Dutch police use of eagles."
Eagles are just the latest and rather novel proposed solution to policing the skies. In Tokyo, where in 2015 a man flew a bucket of radioactive sand onto the prime minister's roof, they will be using bigger drones armed with nets to catch smaller drones. Other solutions include using a big ol' net gun fired from the ground, or remotely disabling the drone with some kind of wireless hack attack.
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