The Dark Side of the Bald Eagle

A few months ago, Tyler Haymon, a fellow member of my hunting club, posted an interesting article on Facebook about a 1913 eagle attack on a child in DeRidder, Louisiana. Coincidentally, I had just watched a video of an eagle picking up a kid in a central Asian country.

Intrigued, I began searching old newspapers and was surprised to find numerous articles about bald eagles attacking people, mostly around the turn of the 20^th century. The following is just a sample of those cases. 

In the DeRidder incident, a huge bald eagle swooped down into a family’s backyard and snatched up two-year Luther Green. As the eagle flew away and was about ten feet off the ground, the child’s thirteen-year-old brother killed it with a shotgun. The blast slightly wounded Luther and the fall broke his arm, but the boy survived the ordeal.

Mrs. Thomas Goodhue had a bloody encounter with a Minnesota eagle in 1906. While out looking for livestock, she found an eagle attacking one of her cows. When Mrs. Goodhue hit the eagle with a club, it turned on her child. She hit it again, but the eagle then attacked the family’s dog. Mrs. Goodhue finally beat the eagle to death, but not before suffering severe lacerations.

Two years later, another eagle attacked an eight-year-old boy near Point Richmond, New York. The boy was lying on the ground watching a baseball game when the eagle landed on his neck. Some nearby men grabbed the eagle and held it until the boy’s father retrieved a shotgun and killed the bird. The boy was not badly injured.

In 1909, a three-year-old Johnson boy was playing on his Illinois farm when a bald eagle circled overhead for a while and then dove down and grabbed the child. The boy screamed and fought back, and the eagle was unable to take flight with him.

The boy’s father heard him scream and tackled the eagle to free his son. According to a newspaper, “The man and the bird were locked in a death grip, the eagle using his claws, while Johnson struck out with his free hand as he held the bird with the other.”

Neighbors finally arrived, pinned down the eagle with pitchforks, and tied up its talons. The newspaper reported the eagle had a twelve-foot wingspan, which almost certainly was an exaggeration, but did not reveal whether or not it was killed.

An eagle attacked another eight-year-old boy on his family’s Wyoming ranch in 1920. When the eagle landed on him, the boy was able to grab its neck, and his younger brother helped fight it until the boys’ mother arrived and beat the eagle off with a stick. The eagle then turned on her, but the woman’s husband finally arrived and killed it with a shotgun. The boys were severely cut up but survived.

In most of these eagle attacks, the victims were unharmed or suffered various wounds. A few children, however, were killed.

In 1868, an eagle snatched up a Tippah County, Mississippi, boy from his school yard while he was playing marbles during recess. His friends’ shouts alerted the teacher, and she said she could barely hear him screaming in the air when she came outside. The eagle then released the child and he plummeted to his death.

Another fatal attack occurred in 1891 along the Michigan-Canadian border. A Chippewa woman had strapped her infant daughter to a cradle board and leaned it against the cabin while she attended to some outside chores.

An eagle picked up the baby but dropped her when it was about ten feet off the ground. It then attacked the child again and began pecking her head when it could not lift her off the ground. The eagle reportedly severely slashed the child’s face and neck and pecked out one eye.

When the mother began beating the eagle with a stick, it turned on her and badly lacerated her neck. The eagle flew off, only to return and attack again, but it was finally killed by her husband and two men who were hunting nearby. The little girl died.

Another tragic attack occurred in 1908 at Eagle’s Nest, Alaska, when a young girl, age unknown, was carried off by a bald eagle. Searchers later found her mutilated body in the eagle’s nest and were able to capture the bird. A Seattle, Washington, businessman bought the eagle and had the audacity to put it on display in his store until a game warden ordered it to be released.

Dr. Terry L. Jones is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. For an autographed copy of “Louisiana Pastimes,” a collection of the author’s stories, send $25 to Terry L. Jones, P.O Box 1581, West Monroe, LA 71294.