Horrifying photo shows what happened after bald eagle dropped CAT onto window of car
A North Carolina driver was left in shock after a bald eagle dropped a dead cat through her windshield while she was cruising down the highway.
‘You may not believe me, but I just had a bald eagle drop a cat through my windshield,’ the incredulous female driver, who was not identified, said on the recorded 911 call.
‘It absolutely shattered my windshield.’
A photo of the crash show a massive hole taking up about one-fourth of her windshield on the passenger’s side.
She had been cruising down US Route 74 near Bryson City, near the Tennessee-North Carolina border, on the way to her banking job on Wednesday around 8:15am when the once-in-a-million incident happened.
She had been driving around 55mph at the time.
‘Okay, I do believe you, honestly,’ the 911 dispatcher laughed. ‘I’ve heard crazier.’
After getting the driver’s location, the dispatcher said she would send the Highway Patrol to do a report.
A bald eagle dropped a cat through the windshield of a car while a female driver, who was not identified, drove down US Route 74 in North Carolina
‘Another question,’ the dispatcher asked. ‘Is the cat still alive?’
The caller said it wasn’t, but noted that the cat was on the side of the road and not in her car.
‘Okay, I have to ask just to make sure,’ the dispatcher said.
A witness told Highway Patrol that they saw an adult-sized cat fighting with the eagle midair before it fell, Trooper Kosal Thach told The Charlotte Observer.
The woman was not injured in the crash and her car had to towed.
Kendrick Weeks, Western Wildlife Diversity Program supervisor for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, said the cat dropped on the car could have been roadkill scavenged by the eagle.
‘But they can take animals the size of a cat,’ he said. ‘It is much harder for them to take a live cat than a dead cat. They usually don´t prey on something they don´t find palatable. And, scavenging is a common behavior in bald eagles.’
‘You may not believe me, but I just had a bald eagle drop a cat through my windshield,’ the driver told 911. The cat did not survive (pictured: stock image)
Eagles and other raptors can drop prey for several reasons, including having a poor grip or if the prey is struggling and the birds are trying to prevent injury to themselves, Weeks added.
Prey can also be dropped if a raptor is being harassed by another raptor or the prey becomes too heavy to continue carrying.