Eagle Grabs Toddler in Viral Video: Is It Fake?

A video of a golden eagle grabbing a baby with its talons has gone viral, but was the big bird really trying to make a meal of a toddler?

The animal attack occurred in a public park in Montreal, where a man was recording the massive bird circling in the air. In the footage of the incident, the bird suddenly swoops down and grabs a baby sitting on the ground. Luckily the bird only makes it a few feet with its prey—the child was either too heavy for the bird to carry or it couldn't get its talons around the baby's think winter coat. The child is shown safe and sound at the end of the video.

Some YouTube users are claiming that the video is a fake because of a lack of shadows in some frames, and it's possible that it was created using CGI. However, while people might want to believe that a golden eagle wouldn't try to grab a baby, it's also very possible that the video is the real deal.

Large birds of prey have been known to grab cats and small dogs, and a baby isn't much bigger than these critters. The toddler in the video did end up being too big for the bird, but perhaps it was so hungry that it tried to grab the child out of desperation. The bird also might have seen the baby as an easy target since it was sitting so still.

It's also possible that the bird in the video was trained and that the baby featured at the beginning of the video was actually a plastic model. After the bird swoops down, the cameraman starts running towards the child, so all that's seen is the ground. At the beginning of the video, a stroller can be seen near the parent and facing away from the camera, so perhaps a real child was in the stroller. The "parent" could have taken the real baby out of the stroller and placed it on the ground for the cameraman to run up to at the end of the video.

So far the parent of the child in the video hasn't come forward to talk about the incident, and if no one does come forward, the world will never know whether the viral video was faked or not.

Check the video out below to see if you think that a real bird grabs a real baby.