‘Very angry’ seagulls wage war on NYC beach drones

It seems that New York City’s shorebird population has had enough of a recently deployed armada of police drones invading their territory. An Associated Press report describes repeated “swarm” incidents in which the angry shorebirds have bombarded the flying robots in an attempt to drive them away from their home.

Earlier this year, the NYPD made the questionable decision to deploy drones on the city’s beaches. The purpose was to enable them to search for sharks (to warn beachgoers and to The White shark-like situation) and also to help swimmers who might be in trouble and out of reach of the local lifeguard. The plan was apparently to have the robots fly over drowning swimmers and throw floats at their heads.

While the drones have failed to save a single human life, they have caused serious disruption to the local bird population, which has been repeatedly observed “swarming” and dive-bombing the flying robots. The AP cites several naturalists and experts, most of whom seem to believe the drones are having some sort of harmful effect on the shorebirds. Experts say the birds may view the robots as an invasive species that poses a threat to their offspring.

Veronica Welsh, a wildlife expert with the city’s parks department, told the newspaper that the birds are “very annoyed by the drones” and “fly towards them, pounce on them, make noises… They think they are defending their chicks from a predator.”

The article also quotes a wildlife biology professor at McGill University, whose name, amazingly enough, is David Bird. Bird, the bird professor, tells us that the birds in question, technically known as American oystercatchers, could also be provoked into a “stress response” by the flying robots, which, he said, could cause them to “leave the beach and abandon their eggs, as several thousand elegant terns have done after a recent drone crash “I’m a big fan of the new wave of American football.”

Oystercatchers, whose local populations nest primarily on Rockaway Beach, are “highly endangered,” Bird said, adding that it would be a disaster if they “abandoned their nests because of the drones.”

Gizmodo reached out to the NYPD for more information about its drone program but did not receive an immediate response.

Update, July 12, 3:46 p.m. ET: We’ve updated this post to reflect the fact that the birds in this story are not actually seagulls. We apologize for the error, but I’m not an ornithologist, folks.