Golden eagle attack: A camera trap that was set up in a snowy wooded area of the Russian far east captured three pictures that were taken within two seconds of a golden eagle swooping onto the back of a sika deer and driving it into the ground. It presumably killed its victim off camera, as researchers later found only the remains of the deer, which was likely picked clean by other animals.
This was the first documented case of a golden eagle preying on sika deer in the Russian far east, and was published in 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 Linda Kerley of the Zoological Society of London. Kerley runs the camera trap project.
According to Kerley, "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."
Researchers aren't completely sure how the deer died, as it could have died from stress, but they believed its death happened quickly as there were no tracks to indicate that it struggled at length. A vulture was also photographed at the scene after the attack just 68 minutes later. The vulture was followed by other avian and mammalian scavengers, which were probably attracted to the deer carcass.
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