• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Birds Of Prey Snatching Domestic Animals, Pets Or Children

A little off topic but, back in 2003, I was walking my miniature Yorkie down the lane. A crow followed us the whole way hopping from street lamp to street lamp. Every once in a while it would cry out really loud like they do when they call to their group. I thought it was cute and I kept talking to it as we walked.

That evening on the 6 o'clock news there was a segment warning people not to leave their small pets unattended because the crows were stalking them. :pop:

I didn't think it was so cute anymore.
 
This aged toy poodle was snatched by a hawk ...
Dog reunited with Pennsylvania family after being stolen by hawk

A Pennsylvania family was reunited with their dog 28 hours after the toy poodle was carried off by a hawk.

Deborah Falcione of Whitehall, Allegheny County, said her 16-year-old dog, Porschia, who is deaf and blind, was snatched of the home's upper back deck Thursday.

Falcione said she gathered a group of friends and searched the area long into the night, but there were no signs of the toy poodle or the bird of prey who grabbed her. ...

Falcione said she was shocked to receive a call the next afternoon from Banfield Pet Hospital saying they had her dog.

"I said, 'That's impossible!' She could not have survived 28 hours out in the bitter cold weather, in 10-degree weather. This is a 6 1/2 pound dog. She's blind. She's deaf. She's 16 years old. I went down there, and sure enough, this is the dog. The old dog with the strongest will to survive," Falcione said.

The animal hospital said Porschia had been found by a neighbor about four blocks from her home. The dog was cold and lethargic, but didn't have any broken bones.

"How she got away, I'll have no idea. How she survived it, I will never know. ..." Falcione said.

An 8-pound bichon frise named Zoey survived a similar ordeal in January 2018. Monica Newhard said Zoey was grabbed out of her Bowmanstown, Pa., yard by a swooping eagle.

The dog was found in a road about 4 miles from Newhard's home by a woman who took Zoey home and later spotted a Facebook post about the incident. Zoey was not seriously injured and was returned home a day after being carried away.
FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2020/0...-being-stolen-by-hawk/3531582560981/?ts_on=13
 
The hawk (or roc?) must have kindly put it down on the floor very carefully. The dog presumably didn't fall from a great height whilst wriggling in the bird's talons, did it.
What a time to be alive.
 

No injuries?

iu


(Golden eagle).

l don’t think so.

maximus otter
 
Here's a recent news report from Las Vegas with photographic evidence of a hawk trying to snatch a small dog.

Teen goes wild when hawk tries to fly off carrying Yorkie puppy

Lulu is a Yorkie dog and Cecilia is the teenager.

The hawk attempts to fly off with the dog. Lulu scrambles and tries, with all her might, to resist and stay on the ground. When Cecilia finally arrives, she screams frantically at the hawk to let go. She stomps and tries to intimidate the Hawk into releasing Lulu from its talons, to no avail.

Cecilia resorts to smacking the bird with a seat cushion, which works. The hawk releases the dog and flies away.
 
Perhaps it was just fed up of it yapping and tried to peck it into submission(!). It might prove that such a bird would have a go at a tiny dog, but who knows, it might have been the other way around to begin with? We don't see how the incident began. But it doesn't really show any evidence of leaving the ground or whether it was intending to try and do that? So - yeah interesting but not yet proof of birds carrying off dogs if you ask me :)
In the video, when the bird flaps, it looks rather as though the dog might have hold of the bird and the bird is defending itself! The dog is wagging its tail like mad (I'm not sure I would do that if I were being attacked by a bird??)
 
Perhaps it was just fed up of it yapping and tried to peck it into submission(!). It might prove that such a bird would have a go at a tiny dog, but who knows, it might have been the other way around to begin with? We don't see how the incident began. But it doesn't really show any evidence of leaving the ground or whether it was intending to try and do that? So - yeah interesting but not yet proof of birds carrying off dogs if you ask me :)
In the video, when the bird flaps, it looks rather as though the dog might have hold of the bird and the bird is defending itself! The dog is wagging its tail like mad (I'm not sure I would do that if I were being attacked by a bird??)
Why would a wild hawk be in a family garden though, if not looking for food? Also, the dog was injured.
Slowing the video down does seem to show the dog holding the bird rather than the bird doing the grabbing.
 
Why would a wild hawk be in a family garden though, if not looking for food? Also, the dog was injured.
Slowing the video down does seem to show the dog holding the bird rather than the bird doing the grabbing.
yorkies not known for brains, but can be snappy.
 
Yithian was this the case from Norway?
I remember reading about it and seeing a picture of the girl who was grown up by then.
I never forgot it because she looked so much like one of my sisters.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Yithian was this the case from Norway?
I remember reading about it and seeing a picture of the girl who was grown up by then.
I never forgot it because she looked so much like one of my sisters.

The photo is a still from the early silent film Rescued From An Eagle's Nest. The girl who appeared as the baby is listed as either Jinnie or Jeannie Frazer. As far as I know all the Edison actors were cast from the immediate New Jersey / New York area.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescued_from_an_Eagle's_Nest
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000749/
http://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/R/RescuedFromAnEaglesNes1908.html
 
Thankyou EnolaGaia, I was thinking that it was an actual case that I had read about.
 
Yithian was this the case from Norway?
I remember reading about it and seeing a picture of the girl who was grown up by then.
I never forgot it because she looked so much like one of my sisters.

I'm confident you were referring to the case of Norwegian child Svanhild Hansen (married name = Hartvigsen), who was believed to have been carried off by a sea eagle in June 1932 at age 3.

Bob Rickard wrote this extended review of the case for the CFI Blogs in 2011 ...
EAGLE & BABY 1 - The Svanhild Hartvigsen Story
January 26, 2011

It was nearly 30 years ago that John Michell and I first wrote about accounts of young children snatched away by large eagles. In our 1982 book Living Wonders - which was subsumed into Unexplained Phenomena (2000 and 2007) - they constituted a chapter we called ‘Avian Abductions' in which we compiled nearly 20 cases with varying degrees of credibility. I would like to take this opportunity to correct and expand one of them - the story of Svanhild Hansen, kidnapped by a sea eagle on the 5th June 1932 from a farmyard on a Norwegian island. Unlike the many hapless children in our accounts, ‘the eagle-girl of Leka' was recovered alive. ...

FULL STORY (With Photos): https://web.archive.org/web/20110903011232/https://blogs.forteana.org/node/154
 
(Copied from the Random & Peculiar Images thread, where the subject arose in reference to a picture posted there ...)

Yithian was this the case from Norway?
I remember reading about it and seeing a picture of the girl who was grown up by then.
I never forgot it because she looked so much like one of my sisters.

I'm confident you were referring to the case of Norwegian child Svanhild Hansen (married name = Hartvigsen), who was believed to have been carried off by a sea eagle in June 1932 at age 3.

Bob Rickard wrote this extended review of the case for the CFI Blogs in 2011 ...
EAGLE & BABY 1 - The Svanhild Hartvigsen Story
January 26, 2011

It was nearly 30 years ago that John Michell and I first wrote about accounts of young children snatched away by large eagles. In our 1982 book Living Wonders - which was subsumed into Unexplained Phenomena (2000 and 2007) - they constituted a chapter we called ‘Avian Abductions' in which we compiled nearly 20 cases with varying degrees of credibility. I would like to take this opportunity to correct and expand one of them - the story of Svanhild Hansen, kidnapped by a sea eagle on the 5th June 1932 from a farmyard on a Norwegian island. Unlike the many hapless children in our accounts, ‘the eagle-girl of Leka' was recovered alive. ...

FULL STORY (With Photos): https://web.archive.org/web/20110903011232/https://blogs.forteana.org/node/154
 
Last edited:
This 2012 Vice article provides a condensed history of bird-snatching-baby stories of varying credibility ...
A Brief History of Birds Stealing Babies

... Giant birds of prey do try to steal toddlers from time to time. As many have pointed out, they're certainly strong enough, with a talon grip that's up to 25 times more powerful than that of a human hand. They're also hungry enough, as evidenced in the many very real videos on YouTube showing eagles and hawks snatching up mountain goats and baby deer. And yes, babies are vulnerable enough, especially if their parents are dumb enough to leave them sitting unattended on a lawn while hungry birds circle above.

Don't believe me? Let's take a historical tour. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.vice.com/en/article/5339pb/brief-history-birds-stealing-babies
 
Thank you, that was interesting, but the picture I remember was of a younger girl holding the torn dress in which she was taken.
She also had curly dark hair, so I'm not sure if it was the same one.
 
Thank you, that was interesting, but the picture I remember was of a younger girl holding the torn dress in which she was taken.
She also had curly dark hair, so I'm not sure if it was the same one.

I can't locate any photo of Svanhild as a child displaying her dress, but ...

Here are two photos of Svanhild as an adult, displaying the dress she wore on the day of the incident.

Unknown.jpeg
unnamed.jpg
 
Back
Top