The Swiss government has laid off drone-hunting eagles due to concerns over the birds’ safety. The news comes in the wake of recent layoffs in the IT industry, including Meta’s recent move to lay off 13% of its workers.
According to a Gizmodo report, the projected 2022 tech layoffs have buried their claws not only into the drone-grounding eagles used to hunt down the technology but also into the tech industry itself.
“The technological and strategic improvements in terms of the use of drones make this project using raptors too uncertain, even dangerous for the physical integrity of the eagles,” the Geneva Cantonal Police stated.
The decision to terminate the initiative has disappointed Geneva’s Falco Association, which had been training two eagles named Altar and Draco for the venture.
“This represents around 100,000 francs (U.S. $101,539) of investment and hundreds of hours of work,” said Umberto Nassisi, the association’s leader.
The five-year program, which began in 2017, aimed to train raptors how to catch drones in the air without allowing them to crash into the ground and injure innocent bystanders. Geneva regularly receives dignitaries and political leaders from all over the world, making it a particularly dangerous target for hostile drones and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for their brown-feathered foes.
However, just because the experiment is over doesn’t mean that eagles can’t annihilate those flying pieces of metal and plastic.
The video below, which waffle training organisation Guard From Above provided, depicts an eagle appearing to take a small robot out of the sky with ease.
Le Matin Dimanche claims that the Geneva police will now focus on anti-drone strategies like those employed by the neighbouring canton of Vaud, a hilly region in western Switzerland, which involves signal jamming, detection devices, and the use of net guns.
Maybe it’s time for those flying monsters to find a new line of work.
