
Drones Help Rid Galapagos Island of Invasive Rats - rbanffy
https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/drones/drones-help-rid-galapagos-island-of-invasive-rats
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tegansnyder
For those interested, they did something very similar in the 1990s with the
goat population and killed something like 250,000 goats:
[https://allthatsinteresting.com/project-
isabela](https://allthatsinteresting.com/project-isabela)

 _" A Judas goat was a female who would be captured from the wild, tagged with
a GPS tracking device, and then released to find other goats, especially
lovelorn males.

The sharpshooters would take to the air again, track the Judas goat, find her
hidden companions and gun them down, always leaving the Judas goat alive so
that the whole process would begin again. Track, slaughter, repeat. The team
eventually used 900 Judas goats over the course of a couple of years."_

~~~
sametmax
And this is why I don't believe in uprisings and revolutions in modern
societies anymore. As an individual, even if you can buy guns, you are not
that far away from the goat compared to what tech and training current
militaries have.

~~~
chongli
A human can carry a shoulder-launched anti-aircraft weapon and destroy the
helicopter, while hiding amongst the rubble of a chaotic urban environment.

Asymmetric warfare is very difficult. The US military struggled for many years
and spent huge amounts of money fighting insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Those are small countries compared to the US. Trying to fight an insurgency on
home soil, without the support of a tax-paying public? Forget about it!

~~~
sametmax
> The US military struggled for many years and spent huge amounts of money
> fighting insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan

They kill 100 fighters for one death on their side, and have control over the
natural resources they want. I don't see the bright side for the opposite
party.

> Trying to fight an insurgency on home soil, without the support of a tax-
> paying public? Forget about it!

That's a better argument. But that would assume the revolution would last. The
local population would not have money or food either, but wouldn't have the
supply chain or the reserve the military have.

~~~
pfisch
The us lost these engagements though. Truly defeating insurgencies like these
is currently beyond the reach of the most technologically advanced and well
funded armies in the world.

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jcam3ron
I wonder how effective this will be. About a decade ago the Tasmanian
government successfully eradicated rabbits & rats on Macquarie Island - an
important nesting place for penguins and albatross halfway to Antarctica.

They had to literally carpet the entire island in poison dropped from hoppers
carried by helicopters. For seven years after that, the island was combed
daily by hunters with teams of trained dogs before they could finally declare
it pest-free. This was the largest successful island pest eradication program
in the world at the time.

[https://www.parks.tas.gov.au/file.aspx?id=31160](https://www.parks.tas.gov.au/file.aspx?id=31160)

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jupiter90000
I may have missed this in the article, but does anyone know what organization
or group is doing this work with drones on this project? I seem to see small
companies pop up that offer 'drone support' on things like property photos,
search and rescue, etc.

Are these often just some guy/gal who buys some nice drones then starts
offering those types of services with them? Are there regulations, licenses or
anything these people should or need to have to be considered legit and
operate these types of services legally?

Just overall curious how these 'drone specialist' operations come to be..

~~~
cwkoss
FAA regulates commercial drone us in America. I'd imagine places like the
Galapagos may not yet have regulations around drone usage.

~~~
kirion25
There are strict drone regulations in Ecuador and specifically in the
Galapagos. They are banned except for scientific use.

[https://www.galapagos.org/travel/travel/planning-a-
trip/trav...](https://www.galapagos.org/travel/travel/planning-a-trip/travel-
faqs/#drones)

[https://drone-traveller.com/drone-laws-ecuador/](https://drone-
traveller.com/drone-laws-ecuador/)

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a012
The drones are used to carry and drop rat poison over the island, which is
something a few steps behind of drones those equipped with laser gun to hunt
and terminate rats just like the movie Oblivion (2013).

~~~
ulysses
I had such a wonderful visual in my head, of drones with tiny machine guns
doing night strafing runs on rats...

Sigh.

(Also was looking forward to the next article, about the rats scavenging from
the drones and firing back...)

~~~
jus101
Check out the Cacophony Project [0]. I believe they were looking at using
machine vision combined with poison paintball guns. Open source too!

[0] [https://cacophony.org.nz](https://cacophony.org.nz)

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bayesian_horse
How do they make sure the other animals don't eat the rat poison? Is it just
that no native species would find the bait tasty?

~~~
Jedd
It's not clear from the article, but my guess is (as others noted) they'd have
some level of confidence from testing against the other inhabitants of the
island.

They could engineer the baits to look, smell, and taste especially unpalatable
to the birds and iguanas there, or ship the baits in wrappings that rats could
& would be able to penetrate, say a thick cellulose or cardboard wrap
containing a single serve.

Typically the problem with baiting in this way is what happens when those
animals die, and other animals eat the carcass. This isn't discussed either,
but it sounds like a) local wildlife aren't big on scavenging dead animals,
and b) the wildlife losses from this would be significantly smaller than from
the rat infestation.

~~~
bayesian_horse
Oh, I can think of a dozen or so ways it MIGHT work, but I'm curious about how
they actually did it.

One way would be to make sure the amount of rat poison is precisely calibrated
so that the rats will get to it first and not leave a lot behind for other
animals to consume.

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dddddaviddddd
I imagine that cost savings would be pretty significant switching from
helicopters to drones.

Related articles:

[https://www.islandconservation.org/ecological-restoration-
no...](https://www.islandconservation.org/ecological-restoration-north-
seymour-island-drone-rat-removal/)

[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00176-z](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00176-z)

~~~
justizin
saw a presentation from HBO folks noting exactly this for film, you're talking
well over $100k for a day for a chopper, IIRC. you can pretty much drop a
couple of the highest-end cameras in the ocean for that much.

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robocat
Rat eradication using aerial baiting Current agreed best practice used in New
Zealand (Version 3.1)

[https://www.doc.govt.nz/Documents/conservation/threats-
and-i...](https://www.doc.govt.nz/Documents/conservation/threats-and-
impacts/pest-control/other-technical-documents/rat-eradication-using-aerial-
baiting.pdf)

DoC is the NZ department of conservation - we try to be a fairly green
country!

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KineticLensman
An article in Nature [0] has a few more details, including the fact that
problems with the drones meant that only half of one island was baited by
drone, and the rest of the island had to be done by hand. Looking on the
bright side, Island Conservation, the Californian group that is conducting the
operation, see this as having set up a controlled experiment (i.e. drone
delivered baiting vs. hand delivered). Only one of the smaller islands was
involved, not the whole group.

[0]
[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00176-z](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00176-z)

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i_am_nomad
Yeah, but now the drones will start breeding out of control, and you'll have
the same problem all over again.

~~~
hinkley
That’s the best part. When winter comes the drones will simply freeze to
death.

~~~
sizzzzlerz
Don't be ridiculous. The Galapagos are on the equator.

~~~
acomjean
Its from the " invasive lizard clean up plan" on the simpsons.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2743879](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2743879)

[https://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=That%E2%80%99s+the+be...](https://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=That%E2%80%99s+the+best+part.+When+winter+comes+the+gorillas+will+freeze&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8)

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mrfusion
All species on an island were invasive at one time or another.

