Eagle Brigade

2022: Geneva police stop using eagles to intercept drones

On November 6, 2022, it became known that the Swiss city of Geneva stopped its Eagle Brigade anti-drone program, which was aimed at training birds of prey to intercept mechanical drones in the air and protect dignitaries.

Officials decided to end the five-year project because of concerns about bird welfare, Swiss newspaper Le Matin Dimanche reported.

Geneva police halt program to use eagles to intercept drones

Technological and strategic improvements in terms of drone use make this project of using predators too uncertain, even dangerous for the physical integrity of eagles, the press service of the cantonal police of Geneva told the newspaper.

The original plan, developed in 2017, was to train predators to grab small mechanical drones from the air without unmanned vehicles falling to the ground.

Geneva often serves as a neutral meeting place for international summits and world leaders, and the eagle training program was seen as part of efforts to strengthen security.

Umberto Nassisi, head of the Geneva Falco Association, which trained two eagles named Altair and Draco to participate in the program, told the newspaper that he was deeply saddened by the decision to abandon the program, saying that "this is about 100 thousand francs of investment and hundreds of hours of work."

According to Le Matin Dimanche, Geneva police will now focus on anti-drone tactics similar to those used by the neighbouring canton of Vaud, such as signal jamming, detection systems and mesh guns.

The Dutch police also had a short program to combat drones with the help of eagles, which was discontinued in 2017 after one year.^[1]

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