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In the spring of 2018, a project to rescue fawns with a thermal camera drone was launched. Photo: Bodo Schackow / Illustration
Source: dpa-infocom GmbH
Drones can bring death as weapons. But you can also save lives. Animal rights advocates detect fawns hidden before the arrival of the combine harvester.
G era (AP) – A drone flies over the field in the early morning. A thermal imaging camera on the bottom shows the temperature differences on a monitor.
"A deer has a body temperature of 39 degrees Celsius, the soil is much cooler," says Dagmar Seidenbacher of the Rehkitzrettung Gera project (Thuringia). So saviors can see if a young deer is hiding in the tall grbad that needs to be mown that day. Then carefully choose the cub and drop it at the edge of the field. The mother comes shortly after to take care of her fawn. "Family reunification has been successful," says satisfied Andreas Nowack, who also supports the project photographically.
Up to 100,000 fawns die each year in Germany, as they would be covered by machinery while mowing, says badistant Nicole Elocin. "We wanted to do something to save the animals the cruel fate." And so she leaves with her comrades in the early morning hours to start their drone. Similar projects have been set up in many parts of Germany
The Gera drone has already flown in Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony. Their mission is not always successful, but this year alone, the badistants have found close to a dozen fawns and brought them back from the fields. The Rehmütter, also called Ricken, lay their fawns in the fields and go for food. In the first weeks of life, young people do not have a natural instinct to escape, but curl up immobile on the ground. So, they could easily be detected by machines.
In fact, there should be no accidents with fawns. "Farmers should always inform hunters before mowing," explains Elocin. This must be inferred from the Animal Welfare Act, which states that no one may kill a vertebrate without reason or cause it suffering or suffering.
"In the past, hunters often went out with dogs to find the fawn, but today, less and less trained dogs are used, so they went to hunters and farmers in February. to offer the drone as a substitute. "It does not help," it was often said, but animal rights activists have not been discouraged, especially since they should not see fly-offs, fly over field for hours, radio aids are flown to places where Kitze is hiding
Carefully, small deer are then lifted up with the help of thick tufts of grbad, placed in a box, transported to the edge of the field. "They should not smell like humans because their mother would not accept them anymore," says Nowack.When people and machines are gone, fawns call their mother, she then recovers the little ones
Completely voluntary, the wildlife rescuers of Gera and Zeitz (Saxony-Anhalt) do their job, wandering the fields for hours to save minors. They also financed their drones privately. In the coming year, they want to buy another – if the money for the flying robot, a thermal imaging camera and a monitor enough. The demand is there, the first reservations have already been received for 2019.
Rehcaring rescue by drone has already become established in many parts of Germany. For example, in Dallgow-Döberitz in Brandenburg, Marktheidenfeld and Nördlingen (Bavaria), in the Black Forest or in the Osnabrück region, animal rights activists, hunting tenants and farmers are raising their numbers. aircraft. The Federal Ministry of Agriculture (BMEL) has also developed corresponding technologies under the Wildretter Research Project.
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