Wildlife Conservation: Hunters in Drenthe Use Drones to Save Fawns and Birds During Mowing Season

In Drenthe, hunters help farmers to prevent birds, chicks and fawns from being injured or killed while mowing the grass. With the help of drones they search the fields looking for the animals hidden in the grass.

The mowing season usually starts in May and June and farmers go ashore to cut the grass. The breeding season runs around the same time, which means that many common birds, for example, nest in the tall grass. Many fawns and hares are also born on the meadows.

So the newly hatched animals and birds are hidden in the tall grass and are often too young to escape. The animals are difficult to see for farmers who are mowing with their machines. Farmers, volunteers, bird conservationists and hunters have been active across the country for years to prevent as many people mowing as possible. For example, for several years now a drone with a thermal camera has been used to find the hidden animals.

Although deer are allowed in Drenthe shoot off To prevent traffic accidents, hunters in the province are also committed to preventing calves from being injured or killed while mowing.

For example, Bjorn van der Veen from the Drenthe hunting association used a drone to find game on a plot between Borger and Schoonloo this morning. “Yesterday we received a call from the farmer who wants to mow here. We explained the plots and this morning I stood in a corner of the land,” he says. RTV Drenthe. The drone then flies off the plot itself. “If he sees a heat source, he sticks around. He marks all those places with a kind of pin on a map.”

To be able to do the job, the hunters have to start early, says Van der Veen. “If it is 25 degrees during the day, the difference between the outside temperature and the temperature of the living animal is much smaller, which has a temperature between 30 and 35 degrees. The earlier you start and if the night has been cold, the better it will emphasize the dots in the land.

With the resulting cart, people can enter the field to move the animals. “This morning we found three fawns and several duck and goose nests,” Van der Veen reflects. “We picked up the young fawns with a big bale of hay and put them in a safe place outside the plot. This way the animals don’t smell of people. The contractor can start mowing now and the mother later.”

But not all farmers already use this method, the hunter knows. “Unfortunately not yet. Farmers are always busy, a contractor wants to mow hectares and the weather is only suitable for mowing for a few days. That’s why we ask farmers in months the winter would they like to cooperate. If they can contact us a day or two before mowing, or we want to give a warning later in the season during the harvest of the corn With our technology we can cover large areas easily, we can cover all areas in an hour.”

Farmers can also do something themselves to prevent the animals from entering the mower. For example, the old-fashioned method of placing sticks with garbage bags attached to the game is still effective, according to Van der Veen. “He is rustling and making noise. Then the deer goat comes at night to pick up the calf from the field.”