One of the most common knocks against the rising number of uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAV) in the skies are the threats to privacy the camera-packing craft pose. Last week provided an unexpected (and, it must be said, non-protested) example of such aerial peeping when a drone videoed an enormous group of male humpback whales battling each other for the right to mate with the only female among them.

Researchers in Australia got their voyeuristic craft aloft after sighting an expanding group of whales thrashing about off the city of Gold Coast 50 miles south of Brisbane. Their drone not only captured video of the humpback mating ritual known as a “heat run” underway – a rarity in Aussie waters. It also documented an unprecedented number of whales fighting for the prize of reproducing with the female whose presence had sent them bonkers. Last week’s airborne peek at the creatures’ pugilistic foreplay involved an astonishing 16 whales – far larger than the…

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Source: dronedj.com