Eagle Attacking Deer Caught on Camera in Russia: Look

Eagle Attacking Deer Caught on Camera in Russia: Look
An eagle attacking a deer in the Russian Far East. (Linda Kerley, Zoological Society of London)
Zachary Stieber
9/25/2013
Updated:
7/18/2015

A eagle swoops down from the sky, and attacks a deer, who didn’t see it coming.

In the rare moment caught on camera, the golden eagle captures the young sika deer.

The camera trap was set up in the Russian Far East, intended for photographing endangered Siberian (Amur) tigers, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society. 

Images of the moment and a paper about the the situation appear in the September issue of the Journal of Raptor Research.

“I saw the deer carcass first as I approached the trap on a routine check to switch out memory cards and change batteries, but something felt wrong about it. There were no large carnivore tracks in the snow, and it looked like the deer had been running and then just stopped and died.” said lead author Dr. Linda Kerley of the Zoological Society of London, who runs the camera trap project, in the announcement.

“It was only after we got back to camp that I checked the images from the camera and pieced everything together. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”
Co-author Dr. Jonathan Slaght of WCS noted that golden eagles have a long history of eyebrow-raising predation attempts. “The scientific literature is full of references to golden eagle attacks on different animals from around the world, from things as small as rabbits—their regular prey—to coyote and deer, and even one record in 2004 of an eagle taking a brown bear cub.”

The scientists say that golden eagles don’t regularly attack deer.