“High-tech drones waging aerial dogfights” come to U.K. hunt sabotage

“Nearly all of the country’s 60 hunt saboteur groups now own at least one drone”

LONDON,  U.K.––“The battle between hunters and hunt saboteurs is being waged with high-tech drones in aerial dogfights,”  headlined Steve Bird and Jack Leather of The Telegraph on September 21,  2025.

“The Telegraph has established that nearly all of the country’s 60 hunt saboteur groups now own at least one unmanned aerial vehicle,”  Bird and Leather breathlessly continued.

“The animal rights activists use the devices to try to deter hunts, and film kills violating the 2005 ban on fox hunting.”

ANIMALS 24-7 readers must have wondered “What’s new about that?”

Droning on & on

ANIMALS 24-7 has,  since the first Showing Animals Respect & Kindness drone flight on June 15,  2010,  reported about more than 700 SHARK drone missions,  most of them involving multiple flights.

Continuous surveillance of all-day animal use and abuse events at times requires dozens of flights,  even as the SHARK drone technology has steadily improved to permit longer and farther flights,  with cameras now capable of pulling in detail from beyond accurate rifle range.

The first SHARK drone flights documented a day-long pigeon shoot at the Philadelphia Gun Club.

That was just the beginning.

“Target-rich environment”

SHARK drone surveillance targets since then have included dozens more pigeon shoots,  hundreds of cockfights and steer-tailing competitions,  and many American-style rodeos,  fox hunts,  foxes and coyotes being hounded to death in chase pens,  USDA Wildlife Services massacring cormorants,  dogfighting operations,  laboratory animal breeding facilities,  puppy mills,  and sometimes ordinary animal hoarders,  as well as any other harm to animals that only drones can access to put on video.

Altogether,  SHARK may have made more drone flights over the past 15 years than some commercial airlines have flown jets,  many of them on information-gathering or verifying missions for other animal rights groups.

Groups raise funds for drones without actually flying any

Along the way,  SHARK founder Steve Hindi has also urged other animal rights organizations to obtain and use their own drones in what he terms a “target-rich environment,”  meaning that a person alert to cruelty to animals need only start looking over fences to see a great deal of organized cruel activity,  much of it––like cockfighting and dogfighting––already illegal but going unprosecuted because no one is gathering evidence against it.

By 2015 several other animal rights groups were soliciting funds in the name of obtaining drones and training drone pilots,  yet few if any actually followed through to more than a token extent.

This is partly because learning to fly a drone requires a commitment of time and practice.

Steve Hindi had a head start in that regard as an already licensed pilot of both conventional aircraft and a powered hang-glider.  But several other SHARK drone pilots have had no such advantage.

(See Idaho ag-gag falls, AETA does nothing, & Will Potter’s drone allegedly flew away.)

Fingers of one hand

ANIMALS 24-7 can count known instances of U.S. animal advocates and animal advocacy groups other than SHARK actually deploying drones on the fingers of one hand.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals reportedly used a drone to monitor a bowhunt for deer in Massachusetts in 2013.

Former Marineland of Niagara Falls trainer Phil Demers,  co-founder of the organization UrgentSeas and a vehement critic of Marineland of Niagara Falls since 2010,  droned the Marineland beluga tanks in 2023,  finding one of the then-38 resident belugas “floating listlessly.”

UrgentSeas later in 2023 droned the Miami Seaquarium.

Environmental groups using drones to document pollution,  including from factory farms,  called Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations,  or CAFOS for short,  have occasionally riled agribusiness enough to bring the passage of laws in several states meant to prohibit drone flights over private property and video surveillance of animal-related businesses.

Advancing technology renders anti-drone laws obsolete

But those laws have seldom been tested in court,  have usually not held up when challenged,  and advancing technology has already rendered them obsolete.

Many years have elapsed,  for instance,  since Steve Hindi last had to fly directly over any property to videotape whatever is going on there.  SHARK has for years now used two-camera drones.  One camera will have depth-of-field and resolution good enough to sometimes recognize faces and read license plates at a considerable distance.  The other camera is used to establish the actual position of the drone relative to the target.

Assaults on drone pilots

These days SHARK drone operations have been disrupted chiefly by assaults on the pilots.

For instance,  alleged cockfighter James Newcomb,  of Waterloo,  Ohio,  was convicted on November 5, 2021,  following a two-day jury trial,  of one count of felonious assault for using his pickup truck to ram SHARK driver Adam Fahnestock’s car,  running it off the road into a deep ditch,  after which the car was declared a total loss;  one count of felony theft for causing the loss or destruction of a SHARK drone,  the drone controller,  and miscellaneous camera equipment;  and one count of misdemeanor assault for beating Hindi.

SHARK hidden cameras documented the actions for which Newcomb was convicted on January 3, 2021.

A similar incident involving alleged cockfighters occurred in Atoka County,  Oklahoma,  on June 26, 2022,  but that time the SHARK team escaped without injury.

(See Alleged cockfighter Newcomb who assaulted Steve Hindi released from prison and Who told the Atoka County cockfighters the cops were coming?)

Hunts now “deploying their own drones”

“Hunts,”  continued Bird and Leather for The Telegraph,  “are deploying their own drones to monitor the saboteurs,  with the two factions fighting for supremacy in countryside skies.

“The Wiltshire Hunt Saboteurs group has four drones,”  about the same number SHARK takes on most missions,”  Bird and Leather said,  “and targets the Duke of Beaufort Hunt, formerly frequented by the King,  Queen and Prince of Wales.

“One £2,500 device,”  about a tenth the price of the more advanced drones in the SHARK mobile aerodrome,  “is equipped with three high-definition cameras and capable of nearly 50 miles per hour,”  Bird and Leather marveled.

“The group has also paid for members to complete Civil Aviation Authority training to be able to fly the most advanced aircraft.

Airborne opposition

“The Wiltshire group is raising £1,099 for a newer drone with ‘even better zoom’ lenses and a battery that will allow it to ‘cover many miles to keep up with hunts,’”  Bird and Leather said.

“Bath Hunt Saboteurs are fundraising for a £1,000 drone,”  Bird and Leather added.

But the Hunt Saboteurs groups have lately encountered airborne opposition.

The Wiltshire Hunt Saboteurs,  Bird and Leather reported,  “claim one of its “eye in the sky” drones was ‘taken out’ this year by a device flown by a hunt it was monitoring.  Footage shows two mounted huntsmen watching as a drone flies into [one of the drones] operated by the animal rights group.

“In a separate clip,  another drone towing a weighted line appears to be attempting to down the saboteurs’ device by ensnaring its propellers.”

SHARK drone rammed

SHARK has yet to encounter that tactic,  but a SHARK drone was rammed by another drone in 2023 while monitoring a steer-tailing competition,  and many SHARK drones have been shot down,  especially in the early years of SHARK drone activity,  before SHARK gained present defensive capabilities.

(See Drone wars over Joliet: charreada rodeo bad actors identified.)

The first SHARK drone shoot-down came on January 2,  2011 at the Wing Pointe pigeon shooting club in Pennsylvania.  Video transmitted from the drone,  along with ground cameras following the drone,  indicated that the drone was hit at least twice before diving into a tall tree,  where the wreckage remained for years.

Heavy flak at Broxton Bridge

SHARK drones were hit at least twice more by gunfire while videotaping pigeon shoots  before the second shoot-down came in February 2012 during a pigeon shoot at the Broxton Bridge Plantation in Colleton,  South Carolina.

Crashing on a public road,  the drone was quickly retrieved by SHARK volunteers.

Back at Wing Pointe,  SHARK on November 18,  2012 managed to recover a drone that was actually smoking from gunshot damage,  but still managed to fly to safety.

Three SHARK drones were shot down in a single day at the Broxton Bridge Plantation on February 18,  2015,  but a fourth drone brought back

(See “Shoot drones, not pigeons,” SHARK founder dares gun clubs.)

“Sounds wild” says Hindi

Yet another SHARK drone was shot down during a September 2015 pigeon shoot hosted by former Oklahoma U.S. Senator James Inhofe.

The SHARK use of drones to document animal abuse,  and the shoot-downs,  were in November 2015 spotlighted by Amanda Ripley for The Atlantic.

But even that 15 minutes of fame apparently failed to inspire other animal advocacy groups to take up drone use in a serious way.  Until now.  In Britain.

What did Steve Hindi make of The Telegraph report?

“Sounds wild,”  Hindi told ANIMALS 24-7.

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