“We will hopefully have some great footage of the user and what the drone did, its flight path, and be able to articulate all the elements we need to fulfill the violation for this person,” he said.
Molsberry, who has been with the department eight years, said he’d never seen a drone crash-land in a reserve before this spring. But the May 12 crash was actually the second in a 24-hour stretch. The day before, a drone went down in Bolsa Chica near nesting sites of the California least tern and the snowy plover. The birds fled but eventually returned, “which was great,” Loebl said. “Still sad, but great.”
That drone operator came forward to claim the device and received a citation.
On Thursday, while KABC-TV Channel 7 was interviewing Loebl and Molsberry for a segment about the drone problem, a man pulled into the parking lot and started to fly a drone right above them, sending it directly toward another tern colony, Molsberry said.
“I actually ended the interview, contacted the individual, identified myself and issued that person a citation right there on the spot,” he said. Television cameras captured yet another drone flying over the reserve whose operator couldn’t be located.
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