Flip Cooper

Michael Parziale, called the Drone Ranger in Manasquan, New Jersey, flies search missions at night and has brought 122 lost animals home without charging the owners. At sixty-four he takes a fleet of eighteen drones, many with thermal cameras, over woods, fields, and streets. In two years the list has included dogs, cats, and one cow. A puppy named Shade had been gone twenty-seven hours. Parziale found him in forty-one minutes. The work runs through his nonprofit, Unmanned Search and Rescue Drone Team, which lives on donations so older and low-income owners are not asked to pay. He also trains military veterans to fly, a skill that can move into surveying, farms, photography, and inspection of roads and pipes. The count is 122 animals found and families who got a call instead of a search that never ended. The method is ordinary equipment used after dark by one person who decided missing pets were a job.