On Friday afternoon, Ian Fairweather, president of Fairweather IT, remotely navigated a six-propeller drone his company designed and built toward an exhausted snow goose that had recently landed on the placid, reflective water of the Berkeley Pit.

But the snow goose resisted the attempts to be hazed from the toxic, artificial lake, swimming away from the drone but refusing to take flight.

“What this is maybe suggesting is that the bird is really exhausted,” chimed in Gary Swant, vice-chair of the Waterfowl Advisory Group, a volunteer board of experts that advises Montana Resources, Atlantic Richfield and other stakeholders in ways to prevent bird deaths on the flooded former open-pit mine on Butte’s east side. “He’s just not interested in moving, so I would just say back off.”

Instead, one of Fairweather’s colleagues sent another high-tech bird-hazing device into the pit: a little remote controlled fan boat equipped with a camera and nicknamed the Waterdog, since builders hope it can be used to not only move birds off the pit water but also retrieve those that die, like a waterdog would.


https://helenair.com/news/state-and-regional/high-tech-bird-hazing-techniques-on-display-at-the-berkeley/article_f181f7d4-c429-548d-8c48-49e07989dda2.html