Rare Pictures: Golden Eagle Savages Russian Deer
In for the Kill
Photograph courtesy Linda Kerley, Zoological Society of London
A camera trap intended for Siberian tiger research in southeastern Russia instead captured a golden eagle swooping on a yearling sika deer on December 1, 2011.
The camera trap caught two seconds of the attack, starting with the photo above, which ended badly for the deer—a healthy yearling estimated to be at least seven months old.
In a Journal of Raptor Research report by Linda Kerley of the Zoological Society of London and Jonathan C. Slaght of the Wildlife Conservation Society Russia Program, the camera trap team describes the fortuitous photos as likely the first documented golden eagle attack on a deer, although field reports suggest the birds also prey on reindeer, mountain goats, and brown bear cubs.
—Dan Vergano
Published September 24, 2013
Takedown
Photograph courtesy Linda Kerley, Zoological Society of London
"I've been assessing deer causes of death in Russia for 18 years—this is the first time I've seen anything like this," Kerley said in a Wildlife Conservation Society statement on the camera-trap images.
The researchers checked the photos in the trap only after finding the deer, dead in the snow nearby.
The photos showed the golden eagle, which is larger and heavier than a bald eagle, bearing down on the young deer. The attack took place in a forest near a power line clearing at the Lazovsky State Nature Reserve in the Russian Far East.
Published September 24, 2013
Death Knell
Photograph courtesy Linda Kerley, Zoological Society of London
"There were no large carnivore tracks in the snow, and it looked like the deer had been running and then just stopped and died," Kerley said in the statement. She and her colleagues pieced together the attack from these three images, culled from more than 7,000 collected by the camera trap over five months.
Golden eagles are opportunistic hunters, but attacks on deer and other large animals are likely rare, said wildlife ecologist Jerry Belant of Mississippi State University, who was not part of the study team.
Belant's team documented a bald eagle preying on a fawn in 2011. "Predation events like this one are dramatic and certainly interesting, but they aren't common," Belant said.
That might be just as well for deer. "Only the hide and skeleton of the deer remained," concludes the report on the golden eagle attack.
Published September 24, 2013
