Hunter shoots down camera drone over New Zealand forest

WELLINGTON, New Zealand, Jan. 28 (UPI) -- A New Zealand drone hobbyist said his device was shot out of the sky over a wooded area by a hunter with a high-powered rifle.

The drone owner said he was preparing to use the camera drone to film footage of the forest in the Tararua Mountain range and he was practicing "making it sit still in mid air" when someone fired off a high-powered rifle and sent the device crashing to earth.

The video shows the drone's fall from the perspective of a GoPro camera mounted to the hobbyist's head as well as from the perspective of the camera mounted to the drone.

The video shows the drone damaged, but apparently not beyond repair.

"I am beside myself that someone could do this to my drone and did not recover my gear until later on that night. Amazingly the drone survived and soon will fly again I have nick named the drone 'Termy' after 'The Terminator,'" the owner wrote.

The owner said the bullet was apparently fired from the hills above the location where he was flying the drone.