Winged Terror From Above

A wedge-tailed eagle tried to carry off a young boy at the Alice Springs Desert Park in Australia, but the boy is okay.

The wedge-tail eagle, the largest bird of prey in Australia, has a wingspan of nine feet and can lift animals that weigh around 10 pounds, which would, seemingly, rule out young boys. But try telling that to the boy who last week visited the Alice Springs Desert Park in Australia with his mother.

The park issued a statement Monday in which it said that a bird “made contact with an audience member.”

Here’s a picture of that “contact”:

Not the sharpest photo but lucky just to snap it. At a nature park in Alice Springs we decided to go to a bird show the young boy in the green kept pulling his zipper up and down. For some reason the Wedge Tailed Eagle did not like it and instead of flying over to the log he is meant to for a photo opportunity he flew straight at the young boy and attacked him. The show was quickly cancelled and the boy taken off to first aid. Those talons are huge he was a very lucky young boy.

A photo posted by Chris | Australia Rural Vic (@55chris) on Jul 10, 2016 at 3:47am PDT

Northern Territory News interviewed a man at the show who said the boy had closed the hood of his sweatshirt around his face, which may have confused the eagle. The park canceled the show. The boy was fine, and left without serious injury.

Eagles have tried to carry off children before, though it was much more of a problem 100 years ago. One eagle tried to carry off a Scottish baby, and another a child in Maine. In Milwaukee, an eagle snatched a two-month-old child from its cradle and flew back to its nest. There was even a YouTube video four years ago that showed what looked to be a golden eagle that snatched a child in a grassy Canadian park. But that turned out to be a hoax.