The first time that Terry Vandenbos watched a bear run from a drone, on a spring day two years ago, he was chasing the animal himself. After he saw the grizzly cross a road near his property, the Montana rancher hopped on his all-terrain vehicle, planning to scare it away from his cattle if needed.<\/p>\n
But the bear began sprinting away when he was still far from it, looking over its shoulder as it ran, and Vandenbos looked up too; overhead, a small drone was following the bear, its four propellers emitting a high-pitched whine as it sent the animal towards a nearby lake.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I need to be here,\u201d Vandenbos remembers thinking. He drove back home. The bear never touched his cows.<\/p>\n
On the other end of that drone was Wesley Sarmento, a grizzly bear management specialist for Montana\u2019s department of fish, wildlife and parks (MFWP) who has spent the last six years testing different non-lethal methods for scaring bears away from human habitation, a practice commonly referred to as \u201chazing\u201d. In research forthcoming in the journal Frontiers of Conservation Science, Sarmento \u2013 a PhD student at the University of Montana \u2013 shows that aerial drones outperformed all other hazing methods tested in his experiments. They provide a way to move grizzly bears away from humans that is safe for humans and animals alike.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe drone\u2019s become a tool where I can\u2019t see doing the job without it now,\u201d Sarmento said. \u201cIt\u2019s just that handy.\u201d<\/p>\n