When wildlife researchers took a look at footage from their tiger-cam they weren't expecting to see a golden eagle massacring a doomed deer.
The footage captures the two-second kill that left behind only the carcass of the sika deer, a Wildlife Conservation Society press release reported.
"I saw the deer carcass first as I approached the trap on a routine check to switch out memory cards and change batteries, but something felt wrong about it. There were no large carnivore tracks in the snow, and it looked like the deer had been running and then just stopped and died," lead author Dr. Linda Kerley of Zoological Society of London, said.
"It was only after we got back to camp that I checked the images from the camera and pieced everything together. I couldn't believe what I was seeing," Co-author Dr. Jonathan Slaght of WCS said. "The scientific literature is full of references to golden eagle attacks on different animals from around the world, from things as small as rabbits-their regular prey-to coyote and deer, and even one record in 2004 of an eagle taking a brown bear cub."
The cameras that caught the dramatic encounter are used to document the Amur tigers in the Lazovskii State Nature Reserve of southern Russia.
"In this case I think Linda just got really lucky and was able to document a very rare, opportunistic predation event," Dr. Slaght said.
The researchers said it is extremely uncommon for eagles to attack deer, but a quick glance at Youtube says otherwise. Videos can be found of eagles attacking other deer, goats, small sharks, and even a grizzly bear.
"I've been assessing deer causes of death in Russia for 18 years-this is the first time I've seen anything like this," Dr. Kerley said.
WATCH (different encounter):
