Send in the Drones!

Drone to search for missing lambs in Leominster

By George Barnes
Telegram & Gazette Staff

Posted Jul 6, 2018 at 10:29 AM  

Updated Jul 6, 2018 at 7:58 PM

LEOMINSTER - Bad weather has delayed efforts to use a drone to search for missing lambs at the city landfill.

The city is planning to use the drone to help search for two lambs that disappeared recently from the former city landfill off Mechanic Street, where they had been grazing. The search was planned for 1 p.m. Friday, but due to thunderstorms passing through the area, it was decided to postpone flying the drone until Saturday.

Mayor Dean Mazzarella said the drone will allow for a more thorough search of the 30-plus acres of the former landfill, to ensure they did not just wander away.

The lamb’s owner, Keith Kopley of Kalon Farm of Ashburnham and Lancaster, learned earlier in the week that two week-old lambs were missing from the landfill. Through a four-year agreement with the city, sheep graze on the former landfill to keep down brush and other growth.

Mr. Kopley said he does not know what happened to the lambs. He said their demise from coyotes or some other predator are a possibility. It is also possible they were stolen, he said.

Mr. Mazzarella takes a keen interest in the sheep. He helped write the agreement with Kalon Farm.
“I feel terrible. They were precious,” he said.

Mr. Mazzarella said the landfill sheep are a popular attraction.

“You can’t imagine,” he said. “Everywhere I go, all people want to talk about are the sheep.”

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No lambs found by drone in Leominster, but could an eagle be the culprit?

 By George Barnes
Telegram & Gazette Staff

Posted at 3:08 PM 

 Updated Jul 7, 2018 at 5:53 PM

LEOMINSTER — A drone search of the city’s former landfill did not locate two missing lambs Saturday, but those watching got a hint of what might have happened to the two week-old sheep.

As Bob Gutermuth flew his Typhoon drone over the perimeter of the 31-acre capped landfill, a large raptor that appeared to be an eagle circled high above. There is no incontrovertible evidence that the predator had a hand in the disappearance of the lambs in the past week, but Mayor Dean Mazzarella said he wondered if that is the case.

The lambs were part of a flock of sheep that Kalon Farm of Lancaster and Ashburnham grazes on the former landfill through a long-standing agreement with the city. Earlier in the week Keith Kopley of Kalon Farm noticed the lambs were missing. He said he doesn’t know what happened to them, but speculated that a coyote or some other predator may have gotten them.

Mr. Mazzarella asked Mr. Gutermuth, a volunteer with the city’s Office of Emergency Management, to use one of his drones to search the perimeter of the landfill. He said there was no indication of a breach in the fencing, nor were any remains of the young animals found. He had hoped that they might have wandered into one of the more overgrown areas at the edge of the landfill and could be found by an aerial search.

“We’re hoping they may be here and got scared off,” he said “It’s all fenced in here, and it is hard to get in and get out for some things.”

The sheep are at the landfill to help keep the grass and weeds trimmed. The project is mutually beneficial to the farmer, who gets good grazing land, much of which is clover, and the city, which does not have to hire someone to mow the landfill.

It has also become something of a public attraction. The mayor said people seem to like seeing the sheep running around the landfill. When the lambs were out there, word quickly spread, and Mechanic Street was crowded with cars filled with people hoping to see them.

The mystery may never be solved, but Mr. Mazzarella said the drone search was worth the effort.

“We had to give it a try,” he said, adding that it eliminated a possibility, and seeing the bird during the search, may have pointed them in another direction.

Mr. Gutermuth said it also allowed him to practice an aerial search, which he said could be helpful when the drone is needed by the Office of Emergency Management to help find a missing person.