Do you know wild birds help hunt honey in the Savannah of Mozambique? Sounds interesting? If your answer is No, not really…then go straight to the Drones section without reading anything described in the dotted section below!
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Wild birds ‘come when called’ to help hunt honey:
If you are reading this section, which means you are curious to know more about these wild birds ‘come when called’ to help hunt honey. Visit this article by Jonathan Webb, Science reporter, BBC News.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-3685446
The article in BBC News highlights the notion of cooperation between the wild birds and honey hunters for mutual benefit, and also their co-evolutionary relationship. Similarly, Drones could be used in co-evolutionary relationships with humans perhaps solely for their benefit of advancement. Now that you know the context that I am trying to discuss, I’d like you to read about the Drones itself in the next section.
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Drones, and its two weeks’ headlines:
If you have arrived straight here without reading the dotted section, which means you are more interested in technology than the wild life. But, at the end of my article, the BBC News article might interest you as the context that I am trying to discuss will be clear by then.
Drones are nothing but an UAVs (Unmanned Arial Vehicles) controlled either by a human operator using remote controller or autonomously by on-board computers. I browsed Drones section in Apple News for the articles published in the last 2 weeks and listed some of the headlines below. It is amazing to know how many articles there are about Drones in just two weeks.
I suggest you read the list below at least once to get a gist of Drones purpose, application, advancement, social impact, regulation and many more.
• HOK envisions flying hotel pods that can access remote holiday destinations
• Facebook’s Aquila solar-powered plane completes first full-scale test flight
• The world’s fastest consumer Drone can fly at 85mph, The drone flies 70 mph and it was made by an 18 years’ old
• DJI drones will receive real-time wildfire alerts
• Winners of Dronestagram photography contest lift drone photography to beautiful new heights and see the best photos made by Drones
• Military are using consumer drones to fight terrorism Kick starter project wants to use drones to rid the world of landmines in 10 years
• Fishing drone flies 2km out to sea and brings home its catch
• Trump, Homeland Security Agree we need Drones on the Border
• Ice Cream: Seller deliver cones with drones
• Amazon Top Ten Deals: DJI Phantom 4 drone, waterproof smartphone case, Moto X Pure Edition and more
• China’s super-sized ‘Xianglong’ surveillance drones gets ready to soar, Look, up in the sky: it’s…. a disguised surveillance drone?
• Drone improvements to make agriculture smarter
• This Scientist is commanding a swarm of Drones with his mind
• Royal Navy drones used to hunt pirates and migrant smugglers, Yo-ho-ho: a Smart watercraft could help the Navy fight pirates
• Biologists to use Drones to vaccinate Ferrets in Montana
• Pokedrone makes catching difficult Pokemon Easy
• How Trucks can make delivery Drones a reality
• Obama’s New Drone Policy is a Step Forward for Transparency
• Drone racing kit offers simultaneous real world and virtual thrills
• AT&T sees cost savings with drone inspection of cell towers and also wants to use drones to improve your iPhone’s LTE connection
• BAE Systems, defence industry giant, aims to ‘grow’ specialised drones in chemical vats
• Inside Farnborough: Incredible air show that’ll share up major air how
• Grand Sky Drone Park could soon be a reality
• The Jet Fighter of the 2040 will be a stealthy Drone herder
Co-evolutionary relationship:
Drones are already used for the benefit of human advancement. From all of the headlines, I have summarised how Drones will contribute towards our evolution and form Co-evolutionary relationship.
• Distribution networks are finding innovating ways of delivering the goods to consumers
• Mobile Operators watching over mobile networks for better services
• Scientists, Biologists, Naturalists are thinking of ways to utilise them in their fields
• Photography taken to its new heights, best footage is provided for many events or occasions
• In combating terrorism in Defense and also to deter pirates and smugglers in Navy
• To shape our future with technological advancements
• Provides a real world and virtual thrills, and also used in surveillance
When I saw the article in BBC News, a thought occurred to me that Drones could simply do the job that these wild birds are doing for the honey hunters. Futuristic? Possibly. I also want to explore about Drones in general so thought of combining them together.
Ok, let’s explore this in the section i.e. Could Drones simply replace the wild birds in sub-Saharan Savannah for honey hunting? If so, what is its impact on the wild birds itself?
Drones vs Wild birds:
As you have seen in the scenarios above, that the Drones are already used in surveillance. So, with the technology available they could easily do the role of tracing bees’ nests. The honey hunters at times risk themselves as they climb high trees and use smoke, axes to safely open the bees’ nests. In future, Drones could reach these high trees with ease and extract honey safely while the honey hunters operate them using the remote controls. Problem solved.
You may be thinking, by using Drones for this purpose in future would mean depriving of food for these wild birds? It is arguable, but this scenario is no different to Robots that are taking over human jobs to improve efficiency in many areas. The people who would want the technology to perform a certain task may or may not think about these wild birds, but conservationists could perhaps think about them. Who knows, as Drones are doing the job of humans, wild birds may learn to work intelligent Drones and in turn win back their bee wax.
This goes back to the theory of evolution where wild birds may find alternative ways of feeding themselves if humans do not cooperate with them. Humans are also constantly innovating ways to feed themselves and technology also plays its part.
Finally, this technological scenario of using Drones and building co-evolutionary relation with them instead of wild birds, in theory, agrees with Charles Darwin’s theory of only fittest will survive!