Other drone users just warned-
What rangers saw as a bad attitude by an illegal drone user in Grand Teton National Park resulted in the first ticket for drone use in that national park. According to the Jackson Hole News the man had got his drone stuck in a tree in the Gros Ventre Campground. When rangers came to provide “education” to the man with the stuck drone, not a ticket, the man’s behavior got him a ticket for “disorderly conduct.” Other would be drone users in the Park got a lecture rather than a ticket, although someone didn’t get the message and flew a drone at a bison.
Drone use is now temporarily illegal in all units of the National Park System while the Park Service devises rules. Many people and groups want the temporary ban to become permanent with few to no exceptions. A few exceptions are currently allowed.
The News article says Yellowstone Park has so far been drone free.
We have written two earlier articles on drones and wildlife and the drone ban in the Parks. See Park Service bans private drones. June 21, 2014. Drones: both a menace and savior to wildlife. May 27, 2014.
The Jackson Hole News article gives a variety of information about recent drone use. Despite ban in parks, drones are in the air. Jackson Hole News and Guide.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
9/11 started it – now the drones WILL be the downfall of this country.
In my opinion – how in the hell do you regulate drone use in a National Park system??? You can’t. You won’t be able to.
Sharp shooters 🙂
Rewards?
emp?
Good! I hate ‘attitude’.
Rewards?
I wonder use of firearms to shoot down illegal or sort of illegal drones might be a way of using firearms legally?
I don’t think thats the most practical option.
Time for defenses against drones technology becoming available for the public mostly consisting of signal jamming or blocking technology. Drop the invasive drone then give it a good stomping. Another toy one might need at the TH or campground? I’d be against shooting at them because where does that bullet end up?
The stupid congressional approval for firearms in national parks will come back to bite when someone whacks a drone out of the sky with a lodgepole pine limb and the drone owner is packing and only has half the bottle left.
Speaking of drones and national parks, we just returned from a quick trip to Olympic National Park (90% of this NP is designated Wilderness) to look at the Perseid Meteor showers, which are at their best this week, before the moon gets bright. Drove to the top of Hurricane Ridge which reaches deep within the Park (but is not in Wilderness), and mostly had the mountain to ourselves. Two other cars and it looked like there might have been more smooching than star gazing in one of them).
Several of the long exposure photos we took had strange dots – looked like somebody just took the ….. button and left it down, in white across a black star lit sky. Well, we got some good meteor trails, but also some satellites and airplanes with their darns strobes doing the “……..” business. Maybe we could zap them too. And, when we say wilderness, “untrammeled by man,” I guess the heavens are an exception (as well as about 1,000 feet above wilderness which, I think is the FAA rule).
nice story…sounds better than my weekend
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140723-map-no-fly-zones-israel-ukraine-world/
Timely report from this weekend. Drones are everywhere and will be everywhere:
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/monica-guzman/2014/08/02/lets-go-fly-a-drone-getting-personal-with-some-creepy-cool-machines/
I’m willing to put up with them if they will catch poachers!
http://www.nbcmontana.com/news/drone-with-drugs-phones-crashes-outside-prison/27261726
How to deal with drones.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5TdsywB1IcU
Rx; 12ga,3 1/2″ mag with non-tox # 2s
http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/08/06/3312744/tourist-crashes-drone-into-yellowstone.html?sp=/99/101/531/