Eagle attacked my 85 lb Rough Collie

[JenellYB]

I am actually quite envious of you there, lol. My first visit to that region was in the mid to late 80's, I've made since then about a dozen trips up there, I will not even begin to describe the invountary 'gut level' reaction I experienced as from the window of the descending plane I first looked down upon Ranier. Or, the effect of my entire week stay there. I was loaned a car while my friend there was at work during the day, and took her at her word about using it...we've both laughed about how many miles I put on that car that week! The strangest sense of it, something far beyond and much stranger than just a reaction to beautiful place...I've been to other beautiful places and not experienced anything like it...was an indescribable sense of having "come home." As for Whidbey, omgosh, Deception Pass took my breath away, and I still remember details of my friend's account of having years before, when herself younger, "shot the pass" in a sailboat along with her hisband and two at the time teen sons, as if I had vicariously experienced through her description of the experience myself. The beaches there were something of an almost 'eerie' experience for me, having never encountered anything near like a "black" sand beach. Had my life curcimstance been different, or had I experienced that many years before and much younger than I did, I might very well have moved there.

In my homesteading life, i have always felt it an important thing to me to try to live in harmony with, as much as I could, nature around me, try to balance such matters as what was needed for such things as protecting my livestock and gardens, with respecting and allowing the existence of the wild life around me. And, in many ways, finding a way to resolve those issues that not only balanced that, but actually sometimes allowed me to work with nature in ways that created a symbiotic realtionship between my needs and theirs, that mutucally benefitted, were not only sometimes the most effective, but the most satisfying in accomplishment, as well.

I live on Bainbridge Island, a bit south of Whidbey. We live right on the beach. There are at least a couple bald eagles living right around our one acre lot (mostly rural area). Their focus does seem to be the water. One regularly perches on the channel buoy close to our place. HOWEVER, they have discovered our chickens. Then again, our chickens are in our back yard a couple hundred feet from the water. They sit up in the tall firs above the coop and chitter back and forth (they don't sound like the raptors I'm accustomed to). So far, the chickens are OK, but there have been a couple times when they were spooked back into their coop during the day. Even the large muscovy drake who isn't afraid of anyone or anything (except eagles, apparently) was in the coop! Very unusual behavior for these birds that LOVE being outside.

I, for one, love living in a world where the wild things are!

 

[True Grit]

I came upon a bald eagle hunched over picking at something on a small frozen lake this winter and I wasn't too far away to think,"holy cr--" when he stood up, unfolded his wings and flew off. He was massive! They don't don't look so large when they're flying at a distance or up in a tall tree. Nice brave collie you have for not backing down..

 

[JenellYB]

Interestingly, perhaps, for those here posting from that area up there, one of those 'isn't this a small world' kind of things you might find interesting, how even among the seemingly least connected of us, the have been common crossings of paths...the friend I visted there lived back then at Everett, but later moved down near Chehalis. You may remember in your news up there, several years ago, when the Chehalist river valley experience freak flooding, combined effect of record rain falls with problems of irresponsible logging practices that resulted in logging debris creating jams and dams, that when a major one broke loose, devastated a large section of the valley. In that, a woman in her 70's was trapped in her home in the rising flood for many hours, the water rising so that clinging to an overturned book case, she was raised to with just a few inches of breathing space below the ceiling. Her survival was miracluous, not only in how near she came to having no space to breathe, but that by the time they rescured her, about 36 hrs, her body temperarture had dropped so low they at first couldn't even register her vitals, and her kidneys had gone into shut down. She lost almost her entire kennel of dogs..among them were American Foxhounds I had bred, some I still at the time co-owned with her, and others descended from mine.

 

[centrarchid]

Type "eagles hunting wolves" into your browser and get ready for a shock....if you have an eagle that has already demonstrated readiness to attack an 85 lb dog, you need to take it seriously, AND report the incident to game authorities. Yes, eagles are protected, BUT, game authorities do often have to deal with individual protected animals that have become a danger and threat to people or property.

Those videos are miss-labelled bigtime! Canids targeted are some sort of jackle that is approximately the size of a coyote, maybe a little smaller. If wolves were in video, eagles shown would have to be 100 lbs.

 

[JenellYB]

They don't look at all like jackals. They look just like wolves to me. They are indentified as wolves in all the literature I've seen on that tradtional practice in those Asian cultres. Sub-species and regional varieties of wolves vary widely around the world. The now extince but once common red wolf of the southern US averaged only around 35-55 lbs. If you research and turn up more accurate information on them, please share it, I'd perfer to be correct about that, if they are actualy something else, too.

Those videos are miss-labelled bigtime! Canids targeted are some sort of jackle that is approximately the size of a coyote, maybe a little smaller. If wolves were in video, eagles shown would have to be 100 lbs.

 

[centrarchid]

They don't look at all like jackals. They look just like wolves to me. They are indentified as wolves in all the literature I've seen on that tradtional practice in those Asian cultres. Sub-species and regional varieties of wolves vary widely around the world. The now extince but once common red wolf of the southern US averaged only around 35-55 lbs. If you research and turn up more accurate information on them, please share it, I'd perfer to be correct about that, if they are actualy something else, too.

Most jackals outside of sub-saharan are more closely related to our coyote. Follow links for more details. Wiki still good place to start.


Could be

Corsac Fox Vulpes corsac looks to small
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corsac_Fox

Most likely
Asiatic a.k.a Golden Jackal Canis aureus moreoticus is correct size and in correct area. Close kin to coyote
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_jackal

 

[JenellYB]

Yes, I am familiar with those animals. As for the fox, there are similar videos of them hunting fox with the eagles, too. The animals in the videos identified as wolved still look like wolves, not jackals, to me. And there is info/documentaries on those peoples and that ancient tradition produced by even usually very reliable sources, such as National Geopraphic, and they all call them wolves. So that's all I or anyone really has to go on.

Most jackals outside of sub-saharan are more closely related to our coyote. Follow links for more details. Wiki still good place to start.


Could be

Corsac Fox Vulpes corsac looks to small
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corsac_Fox

Most likely
Asiatic a.k.a Golden Jackal Canis aureus moreoticus is correct size and in correct area. Close kin to coyote
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_jackal

 

[centrarchid]

Yes, I am familiar with those animals. As for the fox, there are similar videos of them hunting fox with the eagles, too. The animals in the videos identified as wolved still look like wolves, not jackals, to me. And there is info/documentaries on those peoples and that ancient tradition produced by even usually very reliable sources, such as National Geopraphic, and they all call them wolves. So that's all I or anyone really has to go on.

Remember, those eagles look almost as big as the canids. Ask yourself how big is a large female golden eagle. Another point to consider is falconer is very concerned about safety of their eagle. In many instances the falconer actually kills the canid, the eagle just holds it down until falconer gets there. Tackling such quarry is very risky and likely is very, very rare in nature.

I have been up close to eagles, coyotes and gray wolves (derived from Isle Royal population) with latter standing up against my chest. The larger male gray wolves were between 120 and 140 lbs which is less than half my size but larger than most dog breeds and nearly three times the size of a coyote. To my understanding our North American gray wolves are larger than their Asian cousins but the adults of Asian variety by my estimates are still twice the size of animals in videos. Wolves are present in along with jackals where hunts take place. To me animals are dead-ringers for coyotes, color pattern not correct for what you appear to be restricting jackal definition to and muzzle is too pointy for wolf.

A very important thing to consider is that hunting with eagles is a status symbol where taking of larger more dangerous quarry is the objective. People will brag and sometimes stretch truth a bit.

Contacting a biologist working region would be better source than National Geographic.

 

[JenellYB]

Whatever. Status symbol...not really in the case of the Kozaks....it developed for survival, predation on their livestock plus furs for warm clothing and such. Wolves vary greatly in size. The Royal Isle population are on the high side of the size range even among American wolves. O've visited wolf sanctuaries that had nothing even near that size. Golden eagle size also varies around the world. I just have to go on what all the information about those people and that tradition presents, never been there myself.

Remember, those eagles look almost as big as the canids. Ask yourself how big is a large female golden eagle. Another point to consider is falconer is very concerned about safety of their eagle. In many instances the falconer actually kills the canid, the eagle just holds it down until falconer gets there. Tackling such quarry is very risky and likely is very, very rare in nature.

I have been up close to eagles, coyotes and gray wolves (derived from Isle Royal population) with latter standing up against my chest. The larger male gray wolves were between 120 and 140 lbs which is less than half my size but larger than most dog breeds and nearly three times the size of a coyote. To my understanding our North American gray wolves are larger than their Asian cousins but the adults of Asian variety by my estimates are still twice the size of animals in videos. Wolves are present in along with jackals where hunts take place. To me animals are dead-ringers for coyotes, color pattern not correct for what you appear to be restricting jackal definition to and muzzle is too pointy for wolf.

A very important thing to consider is that hunting with eagles is a status symbol where taking of larger more dangerous quarry is the objective. People will brag and sometimes stretch truth a bit.

Contacting a biologist working region would be better source than National Geographic.

 

[wolfman123]

Actually the Eagles almost never kill the wolves..and the wolves you refer to are generally pups or very small adults in those hunts. The hunters almost always kill the wolves which are slowed or held by the birds. And about half of the so-called wolves are just foxes. Watch the videos carefully and you will see they are cut and spliced and the wolves are about the size of coyotes or smaller and multiple birds are used. Tibetan wolves and such are much smaller than wolves in N. America or N. Eurpope and generally even adults onely weigh 60 -70 lbs, and again, you won't see many adult wolves being hunted with Golden Eagles - too much risk, too many mortal wounds and injuries before the humans can intervene.