Golden Eagle Takes Mountain Goat For A Violent Ride Down A Mountain

Have you ever seen the hunting method that golden eagles use to hunt and kill mountain goats? It's a pretty simple one, albeit brutal. Golden eagles are one of the world's largest and fastest predatory birds on the planet. They'll go after just about anything that would make for a good meal, and that includes mountain goats. And though golden eagles are large - boasting a wingspan of up to 8 feet and usually measuring just short of 4 feet long - they can often be outsized by the prey they take down. So how do they do it? Gravity. Remember learning about Newton's Laws of Motions back in the day? This would be a stellar example to analyze with those in mind - though the law of gravity covers most of it if we're being honest. If a mountain goat is at rest, it will likely stay at rest, right? But if an object in motion - such as a golden eagle - comes by and sinks its talons into the back of a mountain goat, then both will be in motion until acted on by an unbalanced force. Which brings us to this viral clip of a golden eagle mercilessly setting its sights on a somewhat defenseless mountain goat. The goat” is actually a species of “goat-antelope” called a chamois, which is native to many of the larger European mountain ranges (Alps, Carpathian, Balkan). Basically, all the raptor does in this situation is latch on, pull in a certain direction and let gravity do its thing. The golden eagle just stays on for the ride, and as you'll see in the video below, sometimes takes a few hits itself in the process. Especially when the mountain goat briefly tumbles into a rock and takes what looks to be a beating, having to bear the full weight of the goat on top of it. I'll let you see for yourself how it ends up, but it's truly a fascinating form of hunting... the golden eagle is basically surfing down on a mountain on the back of a goat. Check it out: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_11NaCCBWX/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link You also get a little bonus footage in there of smaller mountain goats evading a fox on a steep hillside. Nothing like a little 2-for-1 deal, am I right? And shoutout to all of the goats in both videos for making it out of the sticky situations alive (even if they get bruised up in the process).