canberrabirds

WTE child attack - not an urban myth.

To: Terry Bird <>
Subject: WTE child attack - not an urban myth.
From: Roy & Pastor Mijina McDowall <>
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 03:59:01 +0000
Thanks everyone for your posts on a fascinating topic.

For interest sake, 

I notice a lovely article recently published by Esteban Fuentes and Jerry Olsen on macropod predation by Wedge-tailed eagles..


Also of interest, the CSIRO's 'EMU' publication (Volume 27, No. 4, 1928, pp. 287-289) describes two Wedge-tailed eagle attacks on children in Western Australia. Evidently the author 'F.L. Whitlock' and editors of EMU thought the described events were noteworthy and merited further discussion at the time.

Does anyone else have any eyewitness accounts or literature on this topic?

Kind regards, Roy.

On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 4:00 PM, Terry Bird <> wrote:
Following recent recent contributions about possible wedge tail eagle attacks on small children let me relate an account I heard about 10 years from a very reliable senior citizen in Braidwood who was married at the time to a journalist in charge of the local newspaper.

This fellow described in detail an incident which took place on an isolated rural property when he was about 8 years of age  and outside playing with younger children and family members.
An eagle suddenly appeared from nowhere, fastened on to his young sister aged about 2 or 3 years at the time and managed to lift her off the ground.

It was only the immediate actions of this brave young boy  who flung himself over the child that prevented an almost certain tragedy which apparently always remained vivid in this persons memory.

At the time of listening to this graphic account I can remember expressing my great surprise and enquired at the assembled dinner group why  we had never heard of any reports or documentation of incidents of this nature.

In the event of any COG member requiring further information I am willing to make further enquiries about names, dates, location etc.

Sent from my iPad
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