Eagle attacked my 85 lb Rough Collie

The only shock there to be had is the way in which the films are all contrived.
Eagles do not hunt wolves. Wolf remains have never been found at the nests of eagles. No one has seen a Golden Eagle attack a wolf or found wolf remains in the digestive systems of any Eagle ever in all of North america. If you go to Yellowstone though, you will see Golden eagles line up to get a meal at the wolf kill sites. And they do not challenge wolves over the matter. A 12 lb bird , even with great talons, is simply not a good match for a 100 -- 140lb canine that can rip the hide off of a bull elk with its claws alone. If Golden Eagles were superior in killing abilities to wolves, they would attack them routinely, but their instincts tell them it's a really really bad bet. Golden and Bald eagles will fight defensively and that's probably what happened in this case. And now and then an eagle will go stupid and make a really dumb gamble. The collie could have killed the bird and no doubt would have even if it sustained serious injuries. Almost never does a Golden Eagle attack any animal period that weighs more than 40 -50 lbs and when they do it's usually something they can easily seize from above with little risk of injury -- like a young deer.

There are no eagles that can with any high percentage of success take on a wolf of any size..Puppy wolves and very small adults and with the help of people and other birds? Yes.. But even then, they rarely kill; they hold and slow in the great Tibetan hunts etc. Golden Eagles do not risk attacking canines of any size. They will attack foxes and very small dogs -- under 20lbs. And there are just one or 2 credible accounts of Golden Eagle attacks and kills on coyotes of 30lbs. And even then, no one knows if the coyotes happened to be sick or already dying. Hard to say. Predators go for the small, the weak, the dying - prey with the least risk. recently there appeared a series of photos of a golden Eagle attacking and apparently killing an adult female Antelope out West here. It was pretty bizarre in that the antelope seemed to do nothing at all to defend itself. It simply stood and walked around while the eagle bled it and cut it with its beak for hours. It was later confirmed that that particular antelope was very seriously sick to start with. Predators calculate risks carefully. Would you expect a Golden eagle to take on an 80lb pitbull? Not likely and it would end very badly for the bird..unless by som luck it could just swoop right down, grab the dog and stab and slash it to death. And that's just not going to happen but very very rarely.

Also someone claims the Golden has more talon force than the Bald, but that's not true; both are estimated to be around 400 psi. You will see the figure of 800 psi here or there but that's just more fantasy. And Goldens are not much larger than Bald Eagles generally; the big difference is that Golden Eagles are much more aggressive. If eagles were the fantastic killing machines people make them out to be, nothing would be safe! And yes, there are those claiming that eagles could kill Grizzly bears, but the truth is that both Grizzly Bears and wolverines actively prey on Golden Eagles.
There's a long list of animals confirmed to kill and to have killed Golden Eagles including: adult bobcats, cougars, bears, wolverines and wolves ( mostly remains of eagles found at wolf kill sites in the Arctic -- the big white wolves often weigh 150lbs-- ) and even deer who upon occasion catch the birds predating their young and stomp them to death ( Scotich Isles) .. People also think the Golden Eagles just fly about killing any deer they choose, and that's nonsense also. 90+ percent of their deer kills are just fawns often a few hours or days old, totally defenceless. In fact there are no confirmed kills by eagles of adult Mule or Whitetail deer in N. America, though there are confirmed attacks.

wolfman yoou are forgetting one eagle the largest harpy (second to stellers) could do it a female harpy could probably kill a wolf with the right hit but it could backfire.

GOlden eagle are stronger than bald eagles ask any falconer who has experience in flying both species many times and sea eagles ive actually gotten to go to demos and hopefully will fly my own birds for shows not hunting and not eagles though


but the harpy crowned then martial eagle are all much stronger than goldens


Goldens have killed wolves but they are like you said smaller sub species like 60 or 70 pounds not the giants we get and mostly in poor condition usually this is animal cruelty. A golden may go after a small dog a bald wouldnt. Ive seen them eating side by side with cats here.

Hi!
Golden Eagles can fly and dive faster the Balds and they are more adept, but as far as talon power goes, there's virtually no difference. Both of these species kill with their talons..
I have seen no evidence at all as far as golden Eagles killing adult wolves of any species goes in the wild or even with the help of man, but yes at the wolf baiting events in Central Asia, smaller scraggly-looking wolves are tortured and killed in various ways and that includes wiring the wolf's mouth shut so they cannot defend itself and then restricting the wolf's ability to move by tethering it with a chain which keeps the wolf very limited in ability to turn and mount and attack from various angles even if it COULD bight. What this proves is just one thing: the brave hunters are unwilling to risk damage to their birds even when the odds are 2 or even 3 on one.
Martial Eagles do take some Black-backed Jackals which are far from being anything like a wolf and reach a maximum weight of about 29 lbs though many are much smaller..There are small wolves in the Martial Eagle's habitat but no records of them ever killing one and they certainly do not bother the hyena. They also on occasion kill a couple of different wildcats that are also rather small.. Leopards, however, are known to stalk and kill the eagles, so, as always, size really does matter and you can bet that upon occasion things go south when a Martial Eagle attacks a 30lb jackal as opposed to a 10 or 20lb animal, depending, as usual, on a lot of things, but just bear in mind that it's not at all uncommon for a predator to die in combat with larger prey. So would i would not expect a 13lb bird to attack a 100 -- 150lb wolf with any degree of success.
Harpy Eagles have stronger Talon force than Golden Eagles, but they certainly do not prey on the likes of large strong cats or other such predators in their regions. For all that, still, a 130lb wolf meeting a 13lb bird head-to-head on the ground would be a silly mismatch. In theory any eagle could kill any wolf if it could just seize the wolf and bleed it out, but reality is a bit different.
If golden Eagles really could dominate wolves, they simply would, and they simply don't ..In fact, Golden Eagles don't even dominate small coyote packs.

I'm going to weigh in a bit here (though I realize the discussion is now centering around strength of Golden eagles, vs. amazing eagles that we don't have here).

It was my large rough collie that was attacked by the 'bald' eagle (definitely a bald eagle). The eagle was aggressive in the sense that it was not protecting a 'killed' chicken or duck so it wasn't defending it's dinner (it was just walking around the pen trying to figure out how it might be able to get in). My collie was on the other side of the fence when it rushed the eagle, barking VERY protectively. My husband got the sense that the eagle was just angry about being disturbed (maybe hungry or with hungry babies), when it literally 'hopped' (more than flew) over the fence and attacked our collie in the face. They tangled a bit (my husband said it seemed like ten seconds, but was probably more like three seconds) and the bald eagle flew up into one of our trees to try to wait the collie out. Our collie came away with a few dings in his face - either from talons or beak (probably talons).

We feel like we live in Alaska sometimes, because at times in the past year, we have had 7-9 MATURE bald eagles circling our property and the neighbors. We live on Whidbey Island in Washington state. The neighbors are fairly new residents from Alaska and had a beautiful flock of Sebastapol geese, 15+ pekin ducks, and a significant flock of chickens. We have gotten pretty good at protecting our ducks and chickens -- after loosing a few too many to the eagles. The neighbors, however, had to increase -- and increase -- and increase again, their protective barriers. And they still pretty much lost all of their geese and most of the ducks. They said they had lived with bald eagles and grizzlies in Alaska and never had the kind of losses they experienced here. I'm guessing that's because Alaska is loaded with more natural prey and the bears and the eagles don't have to resort so much to backyard flocks.

The eagle population is also frustrating, because they seem to be significantly damaging to the local the Blue Heron population as well. The wildlife biologists and Audubon people seem to think that the herons will figure out how to co-exist with the exploding eagle population, and at this point don't seem to be too worried about it. Time will tell I guess. I've lost my sense of awe for our national bird, and pretty much fear and despise them now, which probably isn't entirely fair either. Oh the complications of wildlife population dynamics. My daughter likes to point out that the eagles have hungry babies too. I guess I raised her better than I like to admit.

Didn't mean to interrupt - I just couldn't resist interjecting myself into the conversation -- since I started it.

When I lived in Tennessee we frequently had golden eagles fly over our property but at the time we had no chickens so they didn't give us many problems except on one occasion. I was out for a walk on our 7 acres with my 2 dogs and a medium sized cat with me when out of nowhere a big egle came down on top of our cat. Our dogs (45+ pounds) were shocked but eventually ran to the cats aid (more out of curiosity than anything I think) and scared the bird away. Even with 2 large dogs giving him the bark and running at him he was still hesitant to leave our cat.
Our cat survived with minor puncture wounds and a torn ear. But golden eagles are not to be messed with.

My sister and I were driving through Oregon recently and thought we saw an immature bald eagle soaring low to the ground through an orchard. There was something different about it though, which I couldn't put my finger on. My sister said it's head looked almost blond. We decided later we might have seen a Golden eagle instead. It's lucky we didn't crash, as we were so intent on appreciating it's low, long, powerful flight while appearing to be intently searching for prey.

p.s. soooo glad the cat survived!