Monday, June 23, 2014

Umm, How Are They Going To Enforce It?

Sounds like a feel good rule with no bite.
From Firehouse.com: The National Park Service is taking steps to ban drones from 84 million acres of public lands and waterways, saying the unmanned aircraft annoy visitors, harass wildlife and threaten safety.
Jonathan Jarvis, the park service's director, told The Associated Press he doesn't want drones flushing birds from their nests, hovering over rock climbers as they cling to the sides of cliffs or buzzing across the face of Mount Rushmore.
Jarvis said he would sign a policy memorandum on Friday directing superintendents of the service's 401 parks to write rules prohibiting the launching, landing or operation of unmanned aircraft in their parks.
Two large national parks, Grand Canyon in Arizona and Zion in Utah, have already changed their rules to ban drones. Some other parks have interpreted existing regulations to permit them to ban drone flights, but Jarvis said each park must change its "compendium" — a set of regulations unique to that park — if a ban is to be enforceable.
At Yosemite National Park in California, where officials announced last month they would adopt a policy prohibiting drone flights, hobbyists have been using unmanned aircraft to film the park's famous waterfalls and capture close-up shots of climbers on its granite cliffs. Zion officials were spurred to take action after an incident in which an unmanned aircraft was seen harassing bighorn sheep and causing youngsters to become separated from their herd....
The memorandum directs superintendents to continue to allow model aircraft hobbyists and clubs that already have approval to operate in some parks to continue to do so. Also, parks can continue to grant permits for drone flights for other purposes like research, search and rescue, and firefighting, he said. Commercial operators like moviemakers can also apply for a permit to operate a drone, he said.  http://www.firehouse.com/news/11531499/feds-want-to-ban-drones-in-parks-cite-safety
So, how are they going to enforce this rule?  How many man hours are they going to spend looking for these drone pilots who are probably hiding somewhere in the mountains??

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