Golden Eagle vs Child in Montreal (?)

Mabel

What do ye make of this? It's trending on Reddit at the moment. Huffington Post floated the idea it may be a fake. Even if it is real, it's the first I've ever heard of something like this. As light hearted as the video gets towards the end, it might not be such a great thing really. Folks may grab onto an excuse like this to persecute them further.

swifts need our help!

I dont think a wild eagle would snatch potential food from so close to people. Why did the guy stop filming at an important point? Would you really say "oh sh1t" so calmly?

seamus

It certainly looks exceptionally real, the shadows and everything seem fine. Usually these kind of fake virals are really low res to mask the imperfections, but this is in 720p.

The only thing is that from about 0:07 to 0:10, the way the bird turns and descends seems really unnatural. But I don't really have any frame of reference for that.

I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility. The child was sitting down, so he may have mistaken it for some other kind of small mammal like a hare and made a go of it. Far too heavy though. Even a six-month-old would be too heavy for an Eagle to snatch.

biko

Those eagles are pretty strong and have been seen snatching big prey before.

They're actually used in Mongolia to hunt wolves.

Pie Man

Fake a very well made fake.

biko

Pie Man wrote: »

Fake a very well made fake.

Mickeroo

I have seen claims that its CG but no convincing evidence of this. There is this quote from naturalist & bird expert Ken Kaufman, which is more convincing to me:

“A golden eagle tries to snatch a baby in Montreal,” and the video goes viral. But it’s faked. Golden Eagle is a scarce visitor in the Montreal area, but the bird in the video is not a Golden Eagle, nor anything else that occurs in the wild in North America. This was clearly a setup: using a falconer’s bird, and probably a fake toddler for the distant scene. With all the ignorance about nature that’s out there already, the last thing we need is this kind of stupid garbage.

Can't find any official source for that quote but its all over the place at the moment. It doesn't look unlike a golden eagle to me anyway but I'm no expert.

Either way if it is real it's a total freak occurence and there was no actual harm done, I hope the general public are smart enough to realise this.

Birdnuts

biko wrote: »

Those eagles are pretty strong and have been seen snatching big prey before.

They're actually used in Mongolia to hunt wolves.

All those vids are falconry birds.

It looks increasingly likely that the montreal video was eitheir fake or staged with a falconry bird. Sadly the damage has already been done and is likely that more Golden eagles will be killed in the wild by ignorant types.:(

dodderangler

Looks more to be a steppe eagle than a golden
Lookin closer I can see what looks to be jesses on its feet
Also why would anyone react so slowly to an eagle trying for a child?
Things like this is what we don't need In falconry
Not that an eagle taking a child but using a eagle in falconry to take a child For a fake video!
It's fake
Good but very fake

Pie Man

http://wtvr.com/2012/12/19/viral-fake-out-golden-eagle-snatches-kid-is-cgi/

Birdnuts

Pie Man wrote: »

http://wtvr.com/2012/12/19/viral-fake-out-golden-eagle-snatches-kid-is-cgi/

Yep, good ole CGI. As someone mentioned elsewhere the lack of snow on the ground in a city that has had snow cover for the past month is another giveaway.

Vizzy

One of the comments I saw was
" a neegle tried ta ate me yungfla"

IrishHomer

Birdnuts wrote: »

Yep, good ole CGI. As someone mentioned elsewhere the lack of snow on the ground in a city that has had snow cover for the past month is another giveaway.

Where does it say when the video was recorded?

whyulittle

Nothing but an attention seeking hoax.

http://blogue.centrenad.com/2012/12/19/centre-nad-reassures-montrealers-no-danger-of-being-snatched-by-a-royal-eagle/?lang=en#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed

dodderangler

whyulittle wrote: »

Nothing but an attention seeking hoax.

http://blogue.centrenad.com/2012/12/19/centre-nad-reassures-montrealers-no-danger-of-being-snatched-by-a-royal-eagle/?lang=en#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed

Not even attention seeking but I'd make people fear falconers that have large birds like a goldie or a steppe eagle as a falconry bird
Sure the sun had on their paper a while back about a Harris hawk attacking a child which was very unfortunate And was a complete idiot that flew the bird in a built up area
But the thing that annoyed me most was the sun sayin that a Harris hawk is known to kill foxes?
A Harris hawk has great difficulty taking on a hare never mind a fully grown fox

I smell bad!!!

dodderangler wrote: »

Looks more to be a steppe eagle than a golden
Lookin closer I can see what looks to be jesses on its feet
Also why would anyone react so slowly to an eagle trying for a child?
Things like this is what we don't need In falconry
Not that an eagle taking a child but using a eagle in falconry to take a child For a fake video!
It's fake
Good but very fake

Not a golden eagle, but defo not a steppe eagle either.