Tila nagkaroon ng “ikalawang buhay” ang mga patay nang ibon matapos silang gawing drones para gamitin sa pag-aaral ng migratory birds sa New Mexico, USA.
 
Sa ulat ng GMA News Feed, sinabing pinangunahan ni Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian ang pagbuo ng drones gamit ang taxidermy birds o mga napreserbang patay na ibon.
 
Ayon sa kaniya, ginamit nila noong una ang artificial materials sa paggawa ng drones na may gumagalaw na pakpak. Gayunman, hindi nila nagaya ang pagaspas ng pakpak ng tunay na ibon.
 
“We came with this idea that we can use and re-engineer birds and dead birds, and make them as a drone. And the only thing that we need to provide them to make them alive, is to basically design an attrition mechanism to put in their body, and everything is there. So they have their tail, they have their wings, they have their head, the body, everything is there. So we do reverse engineering,” sabi ni Hassanalian.
 
Inaasahang makatutulong ang pag-aaral ng behavior ng migratory birds sa pagbuo ng mga makabagong teknolohiya sa aviation industry.
 
Hindi naman maiwasan ng ilang privacy advocates na mangamba sa posibilidad na magamit ang teknolohiya sa pag-eespiya at iba pang uri ng illegal surveillance.
 
Kinikilala ng mga researchers ang mga kritisismo, ngunit iginiit na hindi ito ang pakay ng kanilang pag-aaral.
 
“We cannot deny, I mean, this is a new research that we have introduced to the research communities. We cannot deny the application of this to other types of military applications. But what we have in focus is mainly civil application and specifically to understand the wildlife or monitor the birds,” sabi ni Hassanalian. —VBL, GMA Integrated News