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Drone photography is all the rage these days, with plenty of great and affordable consumer-grade photography drones currently available. Camera-equipped drones are also quite useful for law enforcement, especially for documenting situations when officers may not want (or be able to) get up close and personal. For instance, it recently came to light that the Stoughton, Wisconsin Police Department used a drone to capture images of an individual in the process of committing a crime. The offense? Defecating in a public park, of all things.

This situation occurred at an unnamed park in Stoughton, Wisconsin, where visitors had been regularly reporting unsanitary sights, namely human feces and toilet paper, scattered on a walking path. Naturally, this prompted law enforcement to seek out the individual, who seemed to have a habit of spending their early mornings publicly defecating in this particular park. The police deployed trail cameras and a camera drone and eventually identified the suspect, a 46-year-old woman, who was eventually cited for Indecent Conduct.

This may seem like a pretty novel use for a drone, and it was undeniably effective. As it turns out, though, this is by no means the first time this tech has been used to stop folks from going to the bathroom where they’re not supposed to.

Public defecation isn’t a new phenomenon, and neither is using drones to prevent it and catch people in the act. In 2020, for example, publications such as The Daily Mail reported that a group of individuals attempted to illegally stay overnight in the ancient Incan citadel Machu Picchu. In doing so, they both damaged the site and defecated within it, leading to their arrest and removal from Peru. This incident led to increased security, including the use of drones around Machu Picchu to prevent such criminal activity in the future.

Even before the Machu Picchu and Stoughton incidents, law enforcement officials in Kanpur, India, had started looking to drones as a public defecation deterrent as early as 2016. As reported by The Times of India, police in the district began using drones to collect photo and video evidence of individuals relieving themselves publicly, so that they could be effectively apprehended and fined. This was all part of a larger campaign to improve bathroom accessibility in the city, urging those in the area to install toilets if they lacked them, even offering financial aid to help residents do so.

While some drones make headlines for being the coolest drones money can buy, others make their way into the news cycle for other reasons. Stopping public defecators isn’t a particularly glamorous job, but it seems to be something drones around the world are particularly well-equipped to handle.