Often when hearing of drones and Israel, the first thing that comes to mind is military operations. True, Israel is considered to be leaders in military drone operations, but recently Israel found a novel way to use drones that has nothing to do with the defense of a nation. A collaboration between some conservationists, a tech company, and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) used a drone to help a highly endangered bird, the Eurasian griffon.

The Eurasian griffon, commonly called the griffon vulture, is a large bird of prey. A monogamous pair will build a nest on high cliffs where they will share duties hatching and raising a single chick. The chick is entirely dependent on its parents to bring it food for the first months of life. At first, the parents will regurgitate food for the chick, eventually bringing it scraps of carrion to eat on its own. A venue of 50 griffon vultures can fully consume the carcass of an impala in under 20 minutes. The griffon vulture plays a very important role in the food chain, stopping rotting carcasses from spreading disease. Throughout Europe, the griffon vulture is plentiful. However, in Israel their numbers are dangerously low with less than 60 pairs living in the wild.

At one time, seen as pests, Israel’s griffon vulture population was hunted out. Misunderstanding of the vulture’s feeding practices led farmers to intentionally place a poisoned cow carcass in the Golan Heights to prevent the vultures from attacking the herds. This one act decimated half of the population of griffon vultures in the Golan. Unfortunately, this was not the first time such methods were erroneously used to control griffon populations. As these birds mate for life, when half of a mated pair is killed, reproduction rates drop. Now Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority is trying everything in its power to protect griffon vultures, tagging and monitoring their nests.

One of the mated pairs that Nature and Parks Authority, with help from the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, has been monitoring were successful in hatching a chick in February of 2020. Conservationists were previously able to tag the mated pair and set up a camera overlooking their cliff side nest. The male was tagged T49 and the female as K74. Then, in June tragedy struck the pair as K74 died after being electrocuted by power lines. Through the camera, the conservationists could see that T49 was struggling to care for the chick. Fearing that the chick would starve, Nature and Parks Authority thought it may be best to climb the cliff and capture the chick to be raised in captivity.

It was a less than ideal situation, as keeping the birds in the wild is the main goal. But soon, the conservationist realized that climbing up the cliff would simply be too dangerous. Desperate to save the chick, they asked the IDF for some help from their highly trained drone operators. They hoped to turn a drone into a “mother drone” that would bring food to the chick. “It was very tense,” said Nature and Parks Authority’s Ohad Hatzofe. “We were afraid that it would affect the chick and it might jump off the nest, or the father would attack it.” But the IDF drone pilot was not only a skilled drone operator, he was working with a classified, highly technical drone navigation program from XTEND.

Based out of Tel Aviv, XTEND has developed software that uses virtual reality to control machines like drones. As explained on their website, “We believe in a Human-Centric Machine Interface model, one which does not replace humans with machines but instead integrates the best of both enabling to perform disruptive complex tasks.” Wearing a virtual reality headset, all a drone pilot needs to do is gesture with a finger to precisely navigate a drone. Because of the virtual reality point of view, XTEND’s small drones can be easily maneuvered indoors and outdoors and in tight spaces. “You move your finger like a laser pointer and the drone moves,” explained XTEND co-founder Matteo Shapiro. “If you point at the end of a tree, the drone knows you’re pointing to the edge of that tree.”

XTEND originally saw their product being used by VR drone racers and gamers. Soon they saw the potential for breaking into the commercial industrial drone market, and as a military defense tool. The IDF’s special combat engineering unit, Yahalom had already been using XTEND’s virtual reality drone program to neutralize explosives and inspect tunnels. Aviv Shapiro, Matteo’s brother, and XTEND’s other co-founder and CEO, had never imagined that their virtual reality drone platform would be used to help an endangered species. “When you open a company,” he said, “you build something for a certain market. You don’t think about all the possibilities you might find.”

The IDF drone operator didn’t simply fly the drone up to the cliff and drop off some food for the baby griffon vulture chick. Before going out to the site, the soldiers built a mock version of the cliff side nest based on images from the stationary cameras set up by the conservationists. The IDF spent several hours practicing with the drone and the mock nest. They wanted to ensure that when they got to the real site, they were able to approach the nest with as little interference as possible, minimizing the risk of spooking the wild birds. After the first successful food drop, the IDF sent the drone back to the nest site every 2-3 days to feed the chick. The chick would walk out to the edge of the cliff to retrieve the food, sometimes having to scare off other birds hoping to scavenge the meal.

With the food provided by the chick’s father and “mother drone” the griffon vulture continued to eat and grow. Soon it lost its downy feathers and grew to resemble its parents, a full grown, yet still juvenile griffon vulture. After weeks of feeding and tending to the nest with the drone, the conservationists, the IDF, XTEND, and the species were rewarded. With strength and tuning into its instincts, the young griffon vulture stepped to the cliff’s edge, spread its wings, jumped off the cliff, and soared through the air.