Animal Liberation drone surveillance plan draws fire Animal Liberation Australia has acquired a drone and plans to fly over farms and film animal cruelty. Mark Pearson, Animal Liberation's executive director, told The Reg concerned members of the public told him about drones and their potential application capturing aerial surveillance of mistreated animals. Pearson said he put …
In his living room? Seriously? How old are you? He may have plenty he wishes to hide but most of it is probably not illegal - when you grow up you might learn about some of it.
On the other hand if a farmer wants to hide the way he treats animals it is almost certainly because what he is doing is illegal.
I would imagine that the drones would be regulated by the Auzzie equivalent of the CAA, so they'd need to advise that they'd be operating in a particular area and a crash investigation would be made to apportion blame/make sure it didn't happen again, were there any collision.
You'd hope that the drones would be operating under CASA, but as the guy in charge seems a bit vague over whether they'd be operating as a commercial entity or as a toy I'm not convinced. I hope they consider this properly befor it accidentally goes through the tail rotor of an R-22...
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I've been told that providence has supplied Australia with at least one large, stupid, clumsy species of bird that, presumably, Australian helicopter owners know to be wary of. This drone plan (presumably using cell phone communication) is just another similar aerial obstacle. As for it being shot down, I dare say that a helium airbag device will be adequate for a rescue, and if it does take out a farmer's chopper, then, fair play, I think they can count that as a win. It's unlikely that there would be evidence except for the drone's own video and maybe its cell phone records.
Do emus know they can't fly? Well, the story I was told may be wrong, but it concerned birds that feed on roadkill, then take off when a truck comes, but they can't get very high and are liable to fly straight at the windscreen and smash through it, which isn't good for anyone concerned. But my memory also has the word "galah" attached to it, but it doesn't look like the kind of bird that would do that - although it doesn't do to judge by looks.
I believe that's the Wedge Tailed Eagle that feeds on roadkill then gets hit by trucks. It's less to do with stupidity, and more to do with being a large raptor with a full stomach and not being able to move fast enough.
Galahs really aren't very big, and not particularly carniverous. Although they are just about stupid enough to sit in the middle of the road and get run over.
I think the legality of civilian aerial surveillance has yet to be tested, and I'm just guessing but I doubt it would stop a number of farmers anyway.
Being observed on private land by specialist equipment will piss them off whether it is declared lawful or not. Unless the drone has multiple cameras it can't see everywhere - the smart farmers will just down it from behind.
"I can't imagine that a farmer shooting down an aircraft (which is filming him)....." Not meant many Aussies? I can easily see some irate Oz farmer blasting it with his shotgun and then blithely claiming in court "Honest, yer Honour, I thought it was a crow, and it wasn't until after I'd shot the blasted thing down I realised it was a kid's toy." And as to it filming him, it will be the old view-through-a-straw problem.
IMHO, I think the ALA mutters are just announcing this for the publicity and to annoy farmers, they still have to drive out to the farms to get within range and it will be pretty easy for farmers to do them for trespass when they do enter the farm property.
UAV's are governed by some strict rules, CASR 101.F.1 applies as this is not a sporting use of a UAV.
They are likely to breach CASR 101.250 if they fly it above 400ft AGL, and CASR 101.245 if they close to within 30 meters of a person not directly involved in the operation of the UAV. If the Fyling Inspector deems the conduct to be hazardous under CASR 101.055 then they can kiss good bye to twice the cost of their UAV at least. Also possibly run agains 101.280 all of which strict liability applies to the offender.
The UAV in question would be defined as a Small UAV for the purposes of the regulations.
Well if I was a farmer, shooting crows would be a new occupation, pity if the UAV got hit along the way.
Maybe the hand guns will be as they would be pants for shooting drone. A nice semi auto 12 bore with 1 in the breech and 8 in the extended magazine would be just ripper taking little drones out. Very little property damage to.
Mines the one with the no 6 birdshot
And as these drones are small enough that the Animal Lib folk believe they can't be seen, well, the farm boys can't be blamed if they're merely cracking off a few rounds on their private land and accidentally shoot down the robo-snooper. Not being an expert on Australian gun law, I guess that depends how liberal they are.
I wonder what RF jamming tech would do to one of these drones. Probably stick it into a safe-mode hover until it crashes? Or perhaps an automated landing? Either way, probably on the private land it's spying on.....
I'm not against some close inspection of the food chain, but not just for animal cruelty reasons. I'd like someone to spot the exact moment a horse turns into a cow or when a pollack turns into a cod. However, I'm not sure a group of Aussie animal liberationists with a drone will be enough for this. I think we might need an All Seeing Eye of Google.
If I remember correctly, the radio control range of those little thingies (which look pretty cool) is about 250m - ( or 500m with the extra cost range extender) - so he's going to have to be pretty darn close to the incident to take the piccies, and how realistic is that given that the size of sheep and cattle stations in Oz tends to be measured in deci-Wales rather than acres?
If things turn nasty he may find it's not the drone they're taking potshots at.
If I remember correctly, the radio control range of those little thingies (which look pretty cool) is about 250m - ( or 500m with the extra cost range extender)
In other words, any decent jammer will take the thing down without any visible evidence, thus providing the Shaggy defence ("it wasn't me").
250m? Peanuts, I have some Texas Instruments RF transceivers that are solid at up to 1.7km and I managed to get talking to each other at 3.4km with the standard whip antenna, throw in some directional antennas and the signal becomes much stronger/reliable, change to an amplified RF transceiver and you're looking at 10s of kilometers.
Besides a decent UAV will have GPS capabilities so if it loses contact with the operator it goes into default 'fly-home' mode, or it goes on a pre-planned GPS navigated route meaning farmers would need some seriously powerful (and most likely illegal) GPS jamming equipment to electronically stop them.
Excuse me, but 1.7km or 3.4km or even 10s of km will barely get you to the gate of the house paddock. Try a lot more to get to the mailbox.
Check the scenario:
ALA: Excuse me suspect animal abuser, I'd like to come onto your vast property with my drone aircraft to film your animal treatment.
Owner (more likely Manager) And what do you plan to do with that film?
ALA Oh, probably drag you into court, suspend your export licence and kill your business, OK?
As the old song put it:
"Listen mate, there's only one place you haven't been, and you don't need my help to get there!"
For this sort of thing the drone will almost certainly have an auto-pilot (eg ArduCopter) that will let it follow a pre-programmed course. It's more likely to be the limited flight time (10-15 minutes) of a hexacopter will restrict them. There's a reason that entrants to http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/07/uav_challenge_canberra_win/ tend to have fixed wings instead of rotary.
He's obviously not seen birdshot in action fired from a shotgun. If you can hit a clay pigeon or a bird at 20 metres, you should be able to do enough damage to bring one of these 'copters down, which is within the range of most shotguns.
And if they tried to retrieve it, that would be trespass.
The way Australian cattle farmers treat livestock is pretty despicable. Animals are moved on journeys that often exceed 1000km or more in crowded cattle trucks to a coastal port. They are then exported by ship to places such as Indonesia and the Middle East where they have their throats slashed while still alive by the usual Halal brutality
If the farmers had any concern for animal welfare (and breeding cattle for killing excludes them from that category) they would at least have local abattoirs and not subject the animals to weeks of poor travelling conditions before an unpleasant death. It's barbaric.
They may whine about privacy invasion by drone but I've never yet heard a farmer complain about Australia's proposed data retention and monitoring.
" where they have their throats slashed while still alive by the usual Halal brutality"
Am I allowed to mention Kosher without fear of being called 'anti-Semitic'?
Anyway -- usually they are stunned before having their throats cut in a normal abattoir, though they are also usually alive.
Proper Kosher/Halal kills the animal possible faster than the usual meat factory method.
Kosher (dunno about Halal) has to use sharp knives without any nicks on the blade.
Nope, bugger all about Jehovah (did he say Jehovah?!) it's all about not contaminating the meat in a hot climate -- people die.
Let's all go back to using a pole axe instead - it's traditional innit?
Yes, it turns out that when you have fomalised religious ceremonies for the killing of animals, there is a damn site more respect for the welfare animal that is to be eaten. It may appear brutal, and also paradoxical, but halal/kosher killings appear to take the animal's welfare more seriously than normal abattoirs.
Can confirm Halal slaughter requires a sharp knife (you call that a knife, this is a knife! - sorry obligatory croc dundee reference).
Also requires that other animals being slaughtered are not within sight of those getting slaughtered to prevent distress to the animal.
I think there was a study carried out by Hannover University in Germany in the 70s that showed that Halal (and therefore Kosher) slaughtering methods actually caused less pain to the animal (presumably based on brain activity) compared to the captive bolt method.
The only thing is it does not LOOK more pain free - and in this day and age that's all that matters.
I keep my own animals - I'd love to slaughter them at home rather than transport them to an abattoir but in the UK they have decided I cant do that and sell the meat - nothing to do with the EU just rules for big businesses benefit here.
The abattoir smells - that seem to upset the animals on their arrival. As for the killing the electric stunning seems to knock them out more than adequately, as does the captive bolt before bleeding and the abattoir I go to separates the animals so they dont get too distressed- you dont want jumpy animals when your waving a set of electric tongs or a pistol.
As for a sharp knife - sorry but that really hurts the animal - and is not necessary for halal or kosher meat. They both require the animal to be bled completely and being concious has nothing to do with it.
Check up on reports of people communicating with severed heads at executions if you dont believe me.
"Check up on reports of people communicating with severed heads at executions if you dont believe me."
I don't, because there isn't a single reliable source of people "communicating with severed heads". All the ones I've seen fall into the homeopathy category of reliability
If you cant be bothered to read up on that find someone who has had a major artery slashed - unconsciousness is not immediate and it bloody hurts. Or just get someone to throttle you - when the blood pressure in the brain is reduced by cutting off the blood flow you dont pass out immediately.
Or try it yourself - if you really dont think its cruel you shouldn't have a problem with it. But if you can do that and convince yourself the animals not suffering you really should not be let near animals at all.
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