Eagle snatches baby

UPDATE: The sleuths over at Gawker.com debunked the viral video of an eagle snatching a baby. The baby is a rag doll and the bird is not even an eagle, it’s a falcon.

Statement by renowned bird expert Kenn Kaufman:

“‘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.”

And one final bit of confirmation. The video was in fact the work of students at the Montreal-based animation and design school Centre NAD:

The “Golden Eagle Snatches Kid” video, uploaded to YouTube on the evening of December 18, was made by Normand Archambault, Loïc Mireault and Félix Marquis-Poulin, students at Centre NAD, in the production simulation workshop class of the Bachelors degree in 3D Animation and Digital Design.

This post was originally written Dec 19, 2012 @ 11:26 am

The next time you’re in a park setting with your kids watch the skies for birds of prey. The NY Post has shocking video of a hungry bald eagle snatching up a baby in a park. The father’s shrieks apparently surprised the eagle causing it to drop the infant. The baby was in the air for only a few seconds.

Bald eagles were nearly extinct in the United States due to hunters and such, but now the eagles are making a comeback. The eagle’s vision is 5 times sharper than a human. They can spot a small animal from a mile away. Eagles are known for swopping down and stealing prey from other animals (or humans). Hungry eagles will fly a great distance for their meals. They can fly at speeds of 20 miles per hour.