Bounty hunters
The farming and ranching town of Deer Trail, Colorado, which boasts that it held the world’s first rodeo in 1869, is now considering starting a 21st century tradition — paying bounties to anyone who shoots down an unmanned drone.
Next month, trustees of the town of 600 that lies on the high plains 55 miles east of Denver will debate an ordinance that would allow residents to purchase a $25 hunting license to shoot down “unmanned aerial vehicles.”
Similar to the bounties, Governments once paid to hunters who killed animals that preyed on livestock, but only after they produced the ears, the town would pay $100 to anyone who can produce the fuselage and tail of a downed drone.
“Either the nose or tail may be damaged, but not both,” the proposal notes. The measure was crafted by resident Phillip Steel, a 48-year-old Army veteran with a master's degree in business administration, who acknowledges the whimsical nature of his proposal.
But the expansion of drones for commercial and government use is alarming, he said.
“We don't want to become a surveillance society,” he told Reuters in a telephone interview.