Amazing. I have heard that Golden eagles prey on Sage grouse in Wyoming.

Thats crazy!
I remember seeing some show on T.V. the other week, my wife was watching a show called "The Lost Tapes" or something like that, its on Animal Planet, but they were talking about some big giant birds that supposedly were so big that they were carting off 9-year old boys and such!
My wife was freaking! Saying things the show was saying about "monster birds from around the times dinos were here...blah..blah..blah"!
I tried to tell her about these Golden Eagles that sometimes carry goats and smaller animals like that. I said what if one was just really big, like an elder and could carry the wieght of a small boy. That cant be much more then what a goat wieghs?

Thanks for the links and the video. Makes me wonder what the eagle's predecessors were like. What animal is really at top of the food chain?

Here's another one on youtube that made the rounds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAsXtDKdU0Q

We were trying to figure out more about this and you shed some light on the subject.

meplat, I'm not familiar with the animals in Spain but the narrator is definitely from Spain. I listend through it. It is two chapters or segments combined into one. Marcelnad, who posted the video is from Barcelona and has it labeled as "iberian goat". Just amazing the capabilities of these raptors.

I attended a demo by a raptor rescue agency in the Denver area. They told of a report they had from a rancher who watched 2 golden eagles take down a full grown prong horn out on the plains. It took them the better part of a day to do it, but they did it. They said it was during a serious drought and the eagles were pretty desperate. No cliff to drop it off of either.

spud

I've been over the decades two eagle attempts on sheep. About 40 years ago, I was glassing some Stone Sheep rams, when an eagle swooped by, the rams jumped up, put their butts together, and stood in a circle. The rams were far too big to be at risk, but memories from lamb youth told them this bird was a predator. Another time, in Central Asia, Tajikistan, I believe, I saw an eagle unsuccessfully attempt to knock a lamb off a cliff, but the eagle was driven away by the ewes. The same trip. while glassing Marco Polo rams, through my spotting scope, I witnessed a snow leopard attacking a ram which escaped after a brief struggle.

Being a large predator isn't easy either. I killed a huge Alaskan Brown bear with teeth broken off apparently by a moose. I killed a large lion with with wounds probably caused by Cape Buffalo or other large ungulate.

Thats pretty cool.

Thats some excellent footage of a beautiful bird. I had no idea they would go after something that large.

thats insane never seen something like that. its really neat.

DAMN!!!!! That is all I can really say! WOW.

Most of the golden eagles you'll see in U.S. zoos are missing a wing or it's broken -- from shots taken by ranchers "protecting their sheep." I never really believed that eagles could really be a threat, but after this video I can see that domestic lambs would seem to be pretty easy prey. WOW!

That is crazy. Amazing how animals adapt to the area and just drag the goats off the sides.

Man, that's something else. I knew that they would kill geese but something that big is unreal.

The film, which is everywhere is supposed to be by by the late Felix Rodriguez y Fuentes, a Spanish naturalist and falconer, for a TV series (maybe in the seventies?) It is staged but utterly plausible, and shows a Golden eagle killing a chamois kid (or two).

All falconers and most scientists know that eagles can take large prey-- the amazing thing is that Cat Urbigkit (at My blog Querencia) recently captured on camera what biologists that work with pronghorns know: the defense flocking of antelope in response to an eagle.

See also:
here
and my book on the eagle hunters: Eagle Dreams.

Golden's more than earn the title raptor. Gives me the willies.

I've held one before. Almost passed out. Good thing for thick leather gauntlets. The knives growing out of their feet are the stuff of nightmares. They're intelligent too. You can feel it and see it in their eyes. Very intense.

Did you know that they have "zoom" vision? There is a small part of their ocular lens that allows for approximately 2x vision. Pretty wild.

I have seen golden eagles take down and kill both deer and pronghorn in Montana. They usually hunt in pairs and one dive bombs while the other flies back up. They hit the animals hard with the back talon extended and rip until the animal weakens and goes down. Then they attack and peck out the eyes. All in all very ugly and sicking.

I saw a pair attacking a coyote once. They had the dog in deep snow and were wearing him down. I shot the coyote before the ruined his pelt, but I think they would have got him eventually.

They kill quite q few domestic sheep also.