Even weakened raptors with broken wings, heavy bloodloss, or other injuries can do serious damage to anything coming near them... they're actually especially dangerous if they're hurt in some way since all of their defensive reactions will come to the forefront in a major way. For an attack like that to leave no signs of the attacker, like blood on the ground that doesn't match the eagle's, I'm betting the attacker was human and probably someone who knows how to handle birds of prey. If not he or she probably would have left a finger or two behind. Or an eye... well, you get the idea.
Granted, the birds was a permanent cripple already from what I understand and would have been used to working with humans due to its rehabilitation and its subsequent stay at the zoo, but unless most of the injuries were made postmortem the eagle still would have reacted VERY violently to the attack.
(I used to volunteer at an avian rehab center here in south jersey when I was younger, so I know firsthand how violently raptors can react when they're injured.)
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Date: 2003-07-08 05:20 pm (UTC)Granted, the birds was a permanent cripple already from what I understand and would have been used to working with humans due to its rehabilitation and its subsequent stay at the zoo, but unless most of the injuries were made postmortem the eagle still would have reacted VERY violently to the attack.
(I used to volunteer at an avian rehab center here in south jersey when I was younger, so I know firsthand how violently raptors can react when they're injured.)