Police the world over are trying to figure out how to deal with wayward drones. Nets and even laser “death rays” are being developed. But in Holland the police are working on a different approach:

https://youtu.be/HifO-ebmE1s

The Guardian has the story:

As the use of drones increasingly worries everyone from firefighters and air traffic control to law enforcement, Netherlands’ national police have aligned themselves with a group that hates flying robots on principle: the bald eagle. …

“The drones are pretty much the size of a bird of prey, so smaller birds on the ground aren’t likely to mob a bird of prey when it’s flying – but larger birds are, especially when it’s around their nests,” said [The National Audubon Society’s Geoff] LeBaron…. “The birds of prey are having an aggressive interaction to defend their territory from another bird of prey.” …

The birds, he said, are in many cases demonstrating that they have superior onboard equipment to the drones. …

“What I find fascinating is that birds can hit the drone in such a way that they don’t get injured by the rotors,” said LeBaron. “They seem to be whacking the drone right in the centre so they don’t get hit; they have incredible visual acuity and they can probably actually see the rotors.”

Humans, of course, only see rotors as a blur – LeBaron suspects that the eagles can make out the complete movement and thus have no trouble avoiding injury. It doesn’t hurt, either, that attacking a drone the way a bird might attack another bird is usually effective. “Their method of attack is always going to be to hit it in the middle of the back; with the drones they perceive the rotors on the side and so they just go for the rear.”