Geeks-need help to catch the Animal | Hacker News Reader

Geeks-need help to catch the Animal

2 pointsspog3142 comments

In our community, there are a bunch of coyotees showing up unexpectedly especially in the mornings, biting women joggers and overall scaring people to go out at dawn. Is there anyway we can help the local cops using technology? Few ways I can think of: 1) Drone enabled animal recognition system? 2) Cameras watching neighborhood that would alert when it sees the animal?

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- Depending on how big the neighborhood is, you might need lots of cameras to get coverage. Drones may not be practical since someone would need to fly them, and to recharge them after a few hours of flight. (If a drone crashed and harmed someone or something, who would be liable? Would the noise of the drones frighten the coyotes, who would move away from the drone and not be detected?) Fixed cameras would be expensive, since they'd need to be mounted securely and have a way of communicating with a monitoring station.

- There are privacy issues. If you put your entire neighborhood under video surveillance to spot coyotes, how will people be assured that their privacy isn't being compromised? Who will have access to the video, under what circumstances, and for what period of time? Would someone be able to subponea the videos in a divorce case? In a police investigation?

- It seems that software that would be able to tell the difference between a coyote and a dog from a distance would have to be pretty sophisticated. (Is that a coyote pursuing a runner, or a runner running with her German Shepherd?) I don't know if you'll be able to find that capability without paying lots of money for a customized solution. The cops wouldn't be happy if they got an automated alert every time a dog passed by a camera.

It seems like a low-tech solution might be the best: people keeping an eye out for coyotes and calling the cops if they spot one.

Thank you greenyoda. The low-tech solution is what we are doing now. It seems we are reacting to the situation and living in fear than solving the problem once and forever.

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