Using lasers to cut tree branches around power lines

[jmowreader]

12. Don't laugh when I tell you this...

...but the US Forest Service recruits retired Army snipers to shoot branches off trees.

The deal is that pine cones have to be picked up off the ground just as soon as they fall off the trees if you want to grow new trees from them. And to be sure you have crews in the woods to do this, you need to know when the cones are ripe. So...the safest way to collect cones for testing is to send a sniper out in the woods to shoot off branches. They fall to the ground, the sniper picks them up and turns them into the lab, and Smokey the Bear knows when to send out cone gatherers.