Dutch police to 'fire' eagles from drone-hunting

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Europe

After more than a year, police in the Netherlands decided to stop the program of using eagles as “drone hunters.”

Dutch law enforcement officials has winded down the program because the training of these birds of prey is more expensive than expected, and the police doubt if whether the eagles would do what they were trained outside of the controlled training environment, said NOS.

The Dutch police first announced the plan of training eagles to prevent drone attacks in January 2016 and claimed ready last November.

Gif via Politie

A video released by the Dutch police demonstrated an eagle grabbing a drone in the air. However, concerns were raised by animal rights activists. “If an eagle cannot catch his prey, he may become so frustrated that he picks up something else,” Robert Muster, a falconer, told the NL Times last year.

Muster also mentioned that eagle talons are strong enough to easily pierce a child’s head, The Verge reported.

Besides eagles, the Dutch police also halted the use of rat for tracing purposes such as tracking illegal fireworks, fake cigarettes and skeletal remains of human, because they couldn’t be made “operational.”

Both of the “fired” animals – eagles and rats – were taken cared of under good shelters, said NOS.