Drone Pilot Rescues Dogs and Cats in Disaster Areas

Animal rescuer and cinematographer Douglas Thron developed a unique way to rescue animals in disaster zones, using a high-tech infrared camera on a drone.

The first animal Thron ever rescued was a dog in the Bahamas after a category five hurricane hit, which “wiped out hundreds of houses,” he told Yahoo News. Thron tested out putting an infrared scope on a drone and found the dog “literally in the middle of the giant debris pile where hundreds of houses had been smashed,” he says. “I flew the drone over and I found him. I was able to rescue him. And nobody claimed him after 30 days so I adopted him, and he’s a super wonderful dog.”

The drone pilot saving animals in disaster zones

Douglas Thron developed a unique way to rescue animals in disaster zones, using a high-tech infrared drone.

Thron has worked as a cinematographer for shows like Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week,” filming the Great White sharks off the coast of Santa Cruz, Calif., along with doing aerial cinematography for NatGeo. But Thron says it was the Paradise fire in California in 2018 that “pushed” him to put his aerial cinematography skills to use for animal rescue activism work in disaster areas.

His dream, he says, is to one day have an animal rescue ranch where he can train others on flying drones and to make infrared drones “as popular for rescuing animals as helicopters are for rescuing people after a disaster”