PETA Air Angel Drone (courtesy peta.org)

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) don’t like hunting. They don’t consider it ethical. Practical. Or desirable. The anti-hunting org would like the rest of the world to see it their way. To that end, they’re promoting, selling ($324.99) and deploying video-enabledĀ Air Angel DronesĀ [above], complete with a flying bunny logo. In terms of stopping hunting perhaps PETA should have opted for a winged pig logo. Anyway, IĀ predict we’re going to see—well someone’s going to see—a lot of crash videos on PETA’s Drone-specific YouTube channel. Here’s PETA’s sales pitch . . .

Using your hobby drone, you can collect instant to-your-phone video footage of hunters engaging in illegal activity, such as drinking while in possession of a firearm, injuring animals and failing to pursue them, and illegally using spotlights, feed lures, and other nasty but common hunting tricks. Your amateur footage can be used to alert game wardens and other authorities to who is doing what to animals.

While hunters hide in trees or pretend to be ducks in order to inflict harm, hobby drone operators who are always careful not to interfere with wildlife or hunters just may end up saving lives.

So PETA doesn’t want members to use Air Angel Drones to harass hunters or scare away animals before the hunters can shoot them. Of course not. Because it says nothing of the sort in their ad copy. D’uh. Funny that the drones used are model ARs.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

109 COMMENTS

    • On drones? WHAT drones? I haven’t seen any drones, officer. Are you sure you’re feeling OK?

    • My first thought (not being a hunter) was “won’t hunters just shoot these things down”? Seems like I’m not that original.

      • Great, thats exactly what I thought too. I could honestly see having to actually fight the urge to shoot one down… moving, fun, small.. buzzy..

        whats not to love when you take it down?

    • Nah. Best weapon against off-the-shelf PETA drones would be an off-the-shelf hack of the control signal. Buy one, figure out how to hack the signal, and publish how to do it to everyone. Then have folks hack the signal, fly the PETA drones into a tall tree or a cliff, etc.

    • There’s a video circling the tubes of some guys who build a “hardened” carbon-fiber drone for the hobby market that seems to be virtually impervious (short of a point-blank full choke blast) to any 12 gauge load they tried. You’re not going to get one for $249.95, but it was pretty impressive. It had four carbon-fiber rotors and computer aided controls that allowed it to stay aloft and under control with any one rotor shot off.

      • What an excellent design. By producing a hardened drone the guy has raised Drone Dropping from mere plinking to a real sport, a veritable Rhino for the clay pidgeon crowd.

    • Pretty creepy–a well-funded animal rights wacko group with drones. I’m assuming TMZ will also have a fleet of drones, and crawling pervarazzi upskirt bots will soon be commonplace.

    • I was thinking more along the lines of a high end wrist rocket. Silent, and capable of shooting a 50 cal ball at drone crushing speeds. A 3-4 hundred dollar drone isn’t going to have very advanced optics package so it it will need to be flown low (i.e. it will be more disruptive). All one needs to do is adopt a concealed position and wait for a good shot. One ball center mass should do quite a bit of damage.

  4. Wait… people WITHOUT guns want to harass people WITH guns? And they want their yards filled up with deer, rabbits and squirrels? Which means foxes, bobcats and cougars show up also?

    Wow, they really DO live on an imaginary planet.

  6. Priorities… It never ceases to amaze me how these people manage to attribute such virtue to animals while showing so little of it themselves.

  8. So the smart hunter lays low while the drone scurries around over head distracting the animals. Boom. Bag the animal and then write a thank you note to peta for being your drivers. Take photos of your kill assisted by peta and post it on their website.

  12. So who has a good recipe for these things as I bet you have to cook it a little longer than a big old rabbit requires eh?

    • Organic Buttermilk Drones

      Ingredients: 2 cups flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 3/4 teaspoon salt, 1/3 cup sugar, 4 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons shortening, 3/4 cup buttermilk, 1 egg, 2 1/2 lbs of PETA-certified organic drone meat.

      In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Mix well. Cut in butter and shortening. In a separate bowl, combine buttermilk with beaten egg then add to dry ingredients. Stir in fruit. Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Roll dough out and cut into biscuit size rounds.

      Bake for 35 minutes at 1.2 GHz or until brown.

  13. I’m interested in this to use FOR hunting. Hahahahaha
    I just wrote them for a spec sheet. Their site doesn’t give a range or time of flight.
    This would also be cool for wildlife photography. Hover it into an elk herd. Would have loved one of these in Africa.

    Hover it to document Dirk and Shannon’s ah…..

    • Oh, yet another reason to purchase one. I was thinking of purchasing one so we would have our own “Big Brother” in the sky if there is another Waco or Ruby Ridge debacle. I never thought of using one to scout an area for deer for hunting.

      Isn’t it ironic? The PETA people create something for the purpose of hindering hunters and we think of ways to use it to improve our hunting.

    • Don’t give PETA the money. You can buy these at just about any hobby or RC shop. It’s called an AR drone. They fly about 8-12 mins on a charge and can fly up to several hundred feet high. I have one similar, though mine has 8 props and is about twice the size. It will easily pick up and carry around a camera, a couple cans of beer, or a small pistol. They are super crazy fun. You tube has videos of folks putting small firearms on these. The only drawback for sporting purposes is that when I fly mine, the neighbors that are almost a mile away can hear it buzzing.

    • I’ve been curious about a hobbyists video “drone” of some sort for the farm (checking out the back fields when I’m not feeling up to the full walk about). If you want to get it cheaper and not dump money directly into PETAs lap, the supplier is Parrot; http://www.parrot.com/usa/products/all-products . Bargains should be around on places like Amazon.

    • There is a pretty good review of the actual quadricopter here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oic23ug_6RA

      You can get it off Amazon for $25 less than from PETA, and no money goes to PETA. You can get used ones even cheaper thru Amazon, and it looks like a number of them come with extra batteries. If I had the scratch right now there would be one in a UPS truck headed for my house.

      Flight time is pretty typical for this size electric quadricopter, 10-15 minutes, tops. Also range is limited to the wi-fi range of the phone or tablet controlling it.

      If you watch the video tho the thing has good enough stabilizing logic that even kids can fly it first time, it looks like it would be a hoot!

  15. My first thought was to purchase one and use it to further our cause. One of these things in the air getting video of the next Waco or Ruby Ridge debacle would be epic.

  17. If only they came with FLIR (Forward Looking Infra Red) cameras … that would definitely seal the deal.

  18. Well, there was a thing recently about getting a drone hunting license, wasn’t there? Demand, meet supply.

  22. I haven’t had a small game license in a number of years. Might be time to pay up so I can hunt small drones. That would be some fun.

  23. The ones PETA sells on their site are Wi-Fi drones that will pretty much require the operator to keep line-of-site and won’t work well in any significant winds. No live-camera feed to control it either. The video on their site shows much more expensive ‘hobby-drones’ that cost thousands of dollars. The one shot down in the article John posted a link to above possibly cost more than a used car. That article said more than $4,000 damage to the camera, which would make it a very expensive camera system.

    Oh, and lithium-polymer batteries do not react good to being damaged. Not good at all.

  24. Although I hide in trees all the time, in my hunting experiences never once have I masqueraded as a duck in order to bag one.

    • Wait, you don’t need to dress up as a duck? Then why did my ex give me that second had Donald Duck costume with a camo hunting jacket on it all those years ago?

  25. I do ok, dont need a drone to hunt although its crossed my mind. However, how long before the hunting clubs put a gun or other anti-drone device on their own drone. It takes good drone with a gun to stop a bad drone? Hmmm what would be a good anti-drone device for a drone? Too bad you cannot hack the PETA feed and upload gun porn.

    • Anyone remember fighting kites? Good old hand made kites with broken glass taped to the string, hell wouldn’t even need glass I am sure a decent kite flyer could entangle a quad rotor with a cheap kite.

  27. So those knobs would actually be out in the really real wild? Like out of their parent’s basement and out of the ‘burbs? Yeah, having ill equipped citiots (city+idiots) tromp around without a modicum of field craft, probably not wearing orange, play with presumably loud as hell r/c toys that will have limited range; sounds like they’d be free drivers. Are they going to be trespassing to get their footage? Someone mentioned Hevi-Shot, but isn’t that steel? I say, if you’re going to shoot down any PETA drones, use lead, none of that eco-friendly steel ammo, save that for the wetlands. Let’s not forget the really real great outdoors has climate – imagine how hard it’d be to fly in the brush/forest with a crosswind without getting tangled.

  28. Lol @ stupid PETA marketing scam. They are cheap ass Parrot AR Drones, these barely range out to 30 yards.
    Not like they are selling anything that could actually be used.

  29. I might just buy one of these just to film myself killing animals and then of course skinning the animal, then hurling the remaining carcass into the brush.

    “Animal slayer 8904” filmed by the PETA Air Angel

  30. Here in Arkansas, mallards have more rights than pretty much anyone. If you kill one out of season your up shit creek. Its pretty much a life time sentence. I think the best thing that could happen would for one of these drones to kill a duck or wreck in a protected water management area with a drone. A load of batteries in a WMA would not look good.

  35. What a joke, short range and short run time. No way they will keep up with me over one day let alone multiple days of hunting. It is also illegal here, but only a misdemeanor, to interfere with legal hunting. If they are close enough to use this I would either be walking up to them and reporting them or taking a 10 minute walk to let their batteries die.

  37. God I can’t wait to bag one of these, and have my picture up on the boards with my trophy. What load would you all recommend?..I was thinking a load for geese would probably be the best..BlackCloud, or HeviShot (expensive though, to shoot a drone)..Winchester DRYLOK Steel?…
    This is going to be a new sport for me..And could definitely get new shooters introduced to shooting sports…I am excited.

  39. I love that almost everybody who read and commented on this article had the exact same thought, “Oh God yes, thank you PETA for another thing to shoot!”

  40. Damn, I’m not a hunter, but you guys sure make me want to go get licensed just so I can go drone hunting. There must be hundreds of them here in California.

  42. how come no one has made an anti drone? a drone that attacks drones?

    have it shoot a net, water, organic silly string…or whatever is legal. an attack drone would be fun in its self….

  44. Ok. Why not fly your own counter air-force? remote plane carrying a deplorable small chain, about 5-10 feet long. Wrap that across the propellers and watch it crash!

  45. I’ve been hoping for something like this. I always wanted a reason to mount a 40mm BOFORS on my truck or atv.

  46. I have pointed out to PETA members about the fact that animals do eat other animals and usually its very painful for the animal being devoured.Using that fact I point out their hypocrisy, they never seem to respond. Before they go around and try to browbeat people for eating meat, they should try to persuade bears not to eat salmon, lions from tearing apart and devouring impalas.

    • I couldn’t help but wonder PETA’s stance on this issus while reading the article with an animal predator show playing in the background.

      The program showed a lioness trapping a baby antelope then taking it to her cubs for the purpose of hunting practice. Several of the cubs practiced attacking the antelope’s face and neck while the other cubs fore-went the formalities and just begin devouring it front the hind quarters forward. The antelope spend quite a bit of time in unimaginable pain before it finally bled out.

      Maybe PETA should protest African lions and advocate for them to live a vegan lifestyle.

  47. You know, I have a Parrot AR drone like the one they’ve modified for this, and even with an aftermarket battery, you’d be lucky to get 20 minutes of flight time out of it.

    It’s a toy, nothing more.

    • By ‘modify’ all they do is keep the ‘indoor hull’ and add a set of PETA decals. Then jack the price by $25.

      I wonder what they do with the ‘indoor hulls’. Choke a landfill? Well, not like they have sold any.

  48. If you can hear these things from a mile away and they are flying towards your hunt in order to monitor the hunt, isn’t that disturbing the hunt? I would think you could prosecute for being observed by a noisey drone scaring off the game.

  49. That drone is just a re-dressed AR Parrot. Radio range is less than 100 yards and the camera can’t see too well unless the drone is sitting still. For any bird hunter, that should be an easy shot.

  50. So who shall we sue when one of these drones swoops in and startles some hunter out of his tree stand and he breaks his neck. This WILL happen. I, for one, would be happy to be on the legal team that sues PETA into bankruptcy.

  51. Robert – could we have a TTAG test of the effectiveness of different 12ga loads on these drones? Double ought? #4 buck? A true scientific test would be very useful.

    By the way, one rural county in Colorado is offering a bounty on any drones shot down, and Idaho has a recent law that makes drone use for any surveillance illegal without a warrant.

    Lead shot, tungsten, or steel?

Comments are closed.