In Norway, there have been four cases in the last week in which a golden eagle has attacked a person. Before that, there had been exactly one attack in the country.
During the past week, four different cases have been observed in Norway in which a golden eagle has attacked a person. Norway tells about it public broadcaster NRK.
– Attacks by eagles on humans are so rare that I have not heard of them other than in ancient unconfirmed stories, golden eagle expert Alv Ottar Folkestad says in an interview with NRK.
Folkestad works at Birdlife, a Norwegian bird research and conservation organization. According to him, before last week, only one case of a golden eagle attacking a person had been confirmed in Norway.
– It seems incomprehensible that this could have happened. I mean especially this attack on a small child.
A bald eagle attacked a 20-month-old toddler in Svorkmo in central Norway on Saturday. The child was playing on the family farm when an eagle pounced on him.
The girl received wounds on her head and face in the attack, which were stitched up. According to the game warden who was alerted to the scene and later killed the Kotka, the bird of prey took the child as its prey.
Before Saturday, a golden eagle had also attacked a person in Tyini on Tuesday, Glittertind on Thursday and Holtålen on Friday.
Young individuals behind the attacks
According to Folkestad, eagles can startle if a person gets too close to them in the wild. However, it is very rare for an eagle to catch a small child in a playground where several people are present.
– There is no sense in what happened. This is like a black hole, completely extraordinary behavior.
Folkestad says he has seen pictures of all four eagles behind last week’s attacks.
According to him, in all cases, it has been very young individuals that had just left their nest.
– They had only left their nest about two months ago and it must have been four different individuals. The geographical distance of the attacks is that great.