For a long time, it has been thought that wild harpy eagles pose no danger to humans outside of the period when they are defending their nests, but a new paper published a few days ago has proved otherwise.
In October 2023, a group of eleven people walking near a tourist camp in the French Guianan rainforest encountered a harpy eagle on a branch about six metres above the ground. The bird remained on its perch and appeared curious of the people below. After stopping to observe the eagle, much of the group moved on, leaving just two people alone. One of them, a 29-year-old woman, about 1.7m tall and weighing 52 kilograms, was then attacked. The eagle grabbed her by the back of the skull, leaving three scalp wounds each about 2 centimetres long. The woman's partner was able to free her by slamming the eagle's head to the ground with his shoe and immobilising it by pressing down on its neck. The woman was taken to hospital, where her head wounds recovered over several weeks. The eagle flew away - in the following months, no further attacks were reported. In this particular case, the authors say that the presence of a second person probably prevented the attack from being a fatal one.
Different explanations are explored - there was no evidence of a nest in the area, nor that the bird was in some way habituated to humans. There is some suggestion that a hunt may have been disrupted, as the group of people had seen a paca on the trail a few minutes before encountering the eagle. The same bird had also killed an unidentified monkey a few days previously, so may have been defending an unseen kill. It is considered likely that this was an individual response to a situational stressor, rather than a generalisable response towards humans.
However, the paper does also say that many harpy eagle researchers are also aware of well-documented cases of eagle attacks on humans, which they choose not to publish out of the fear of inadvertently fuelling fears about the birds and subsequently cause them to be persecuted.
The full paper, including images of the injuries, can be found here.
In October 2023, a group of eleven people walking near a tourist camp in the French Guianan rainforest encountered a harpy eagle on a branch about six metres above the ground. The bird remained on its perch and appeared curious of the people below. After stopping to observe the eagle, much of the group moved on, leaving just two people alone. One of them, a 29-year-old woman, about 1.7m tall and weighing 52 kilograms, was then attacked. The eagle grabbed her by the back of the skull, leaving three scalp wounds each about 2 centimetres long. The woman's partner was able to free her by slamming the eagle's head to the ground with his shoe and immobilising it by pressing down on its neck. The woman was taken to hospital, where her head wounds recovered over several weeks. The eagle flew away - in the following months, no further attacks were reported. In this particular case, the authors say that the presence of a second person probably prevented the attack from being a fatal one.
Different explanations are explored - there was no evidence of a nest in the area, nor that the bird was in some way habituated to humans. There is some suggestion that a hunt may have been disrupted, as the group of people had seen a paca on the trail a few minutes before encountering the eagle. The same bird had also killed an unidentified monkey a few days previously, so may have been defending an unseen kill. It is considered likely that this was an individual response to a situational stressor, rather than a generalisable response towards humans.
However, the paper does also say that many harpy eagle researchers are also aware of well-documented cases of eagle attacks on humans, which they choose not to publish out of the fear of inadvertently fuelling fears about the birds and subsequently cause them to be persecuted.
The full paper, including images of the injuries, can be found here.