Unmanned Drone Over Carolina Tiger Rescue #1 – Rosco and Camilla Tigers

What can you do with drone filmmaking? How about enrichment of exotic animals?

The Carolina Tiger Rescue in Pittsboro, NC was the perfect place to use my AR.Drone unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flying around lions, tigers, cougars, and leopards. But, let’s first think about why this may be a good idea.

The main reason for enrichment is to stimulate natural behaviors:

“Environmental or behavioral enrichment is achieved by adding to the captive animal’s environment or by modifying that environment to stimulate behaviors resembling those of healthy wild animals.”

Now you don’t just walk into a wild animal reserve with your drone and start flying around. Here’s what my day looked like before being allowed in.

Before entering the sanctuary gate I helped butcher a cow in the driveway, with wild animal keepters Ed Davis and Lenore Bradford, and another Carolina Tiger Rescue volunteer Heather. I hadn’t used my hunting knife since I was a kid and went deer hunting with my uncles George Underhill and LeRoy Underhill. It was razor sharp. But, that’s another story for another day.

After cleaning up, I prepared food for the binturongs and kinkajous. You may wonder what those are. Sign up for a public tour at the tiger rescue and you’ll learn about them and get to see close up several other amazing carnivores.

A short demo flight around the driveway earned Lenore’s trust. She wanted to know that I could keep the quadra-copter from flying out of control and crashing into the enclosures.

No one knows for sure whether tigers will eat unmanned drones, but neither of us really wanted to know.

I recorded several videos of the animals’ reaction to seeing a small drone flying around. The best reaction was by Jericho cougar, something you’ll want to see soon.

UPDATE: Watch Roman lion and the drone now »

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