When I was moving into this house, I saw a great big hawk catch a big rabbit not ten feet from where I stood! It was terrifying and amazing. That year I had plenty of pecans and no squirrels - the hawk presumably lived nearby. Then I guess it moved away and the squirrels moved back in.
This morning I saw in my pecan tree a huge bird of prey. I don’t know what kind it was, but looking at a few pictures it might have been a Red-tailed Hawk. Something like that. It was pretty close, although I’m bad at estimating sizes, but I could swear the thing was about two feet tall, and when it flew, it had a huge wingspan.
I’m ecstatic to see it (I may set the birdfeeders out to give it some little guys to eat) - it’s a beautiful animal and the squirrels dig up my bulbs and such. However. I have a little Westie. 16 pounds. 15 years old. Wouldn’t see it coming. I know eagles take little toy dogs sometimes, although my dog is definitely heavier and sturdier than one of those puffball yappy things. Is my dog in danger from this bird? Should I do something? Is there anything I can do besides lock him up? He does stay under the porch for a good part of the day, but he sleeps in the sun sometimes. There are plenty of squirrels and such around - is the hawk likely to even want to eat my dog?
Hawks are much lighter than they look. I’d think your dog outweighs him by a factor of two or three. The hawk wouldn’t be able to get him off the ground, so would look for smaller prey.
Very unlikely but not unheard of. I wouldnot worry about a red-tail taking your westhighland terrier it’s too big, it would be likened to it eating a large raccoon. Too much energy would need ot be expelled byt the raptor - i’d let your dog roam as free as you are comfortable. If you had said toy yorkie or toy Chihuahua then I;d worry, but not a westie or cairne. We had a cairne and he was the busiest little rascal, never attacked by the hawks we had patroling out yard…
My google-fu may be weak today, but all I can find are references to attacks on dogs in the 2 to 3 pound range. I cannot find any general statistics for the frequency of such attacks, or the type of hawks involved, or the maximum size of the dogs. I’ve never had one reported to me first hand.
Redtailed hawks are our largest North American species, and this seems to be the smallest hawk that might manage such an attack successfully. But squirrels are much more typical as a dietary staple. Eagles are larger and presumably could also prey on dogs, but I find no reports at all of this.
Bottom line, I wouldn’t worry about it. Unless I was a squirrel.
Has anyone ever confirmed these stories of hawks taking daschunds and other little dogs as prey?
I’m extremely skeptical of these tales - it seems to me that a red-tail (IIRC, one of the larger North American hawks) would never be able to kill or handle a prey item that size.
wevets, some (few) such reports are confirmed by eye witnesses and the presence of talon punctures. It certainly does occur, but apparently quite rarely.
However, there is no question that a raptor the size of a redtail could rather easily kill an animal in this size range. The power of the feet and talons is something you would not believe unless you experienced it. Remember, these are “foot killers”-- the beak is only for removing swallow-sized pieces.
Also, it is not necessary for the bird to carry the prey away. Hawks cannot lift objects more than perhaps half their body weight. And a redtail weighs perhaps 3 pounds. But the bird could make an oversized kill and simply eat it in place.
Still, nothing contradicts the conclusion that most dogs are safe from most raptors almost all the time.
My dad said when he was a kid on a farm he saw them kill pigs which weren’t piglets - they’d kill them and eat them on the spot, and he’s worried about the dog. “You gotta kill that hawk.” “Dad!” Farmers think differently about this sort of thing, I guess. But the consensus is not to worry? I might put in a call to the DNR to see what they say, too.
This is just what I wondered about immediately upon reading the OP, but with no real knowledge on the subject, I didn’t suggest it. It’s logical. Can’t take it home? Eat it there.
We always hear rumours of eagles taking lambs. Where I live there are a lot of Bald Eagles and yet I have never seen one even looking at our lambs although they are little – when the lambs are born they weigh between 7 - 12 pounds as a rule. Hawks are also very common here but I’ve never heard of one attacking a dog. Maybe if there is a scarcity of prey they might. I’ll ask the wildlife guy next time I see him. There are always hawks lurking near or on the medians of the highways – I don’t really know what that’s all about, although they will go after carrion so if a critter gets hit on the road I guess the hawks go for it.
Coyotes, now. A different matter. I lost 9 lambs and ewes to coyotes in 2006. Last year I got 2 llamas and since then, no trouble with coyotes.
As has been said, unless you have a Harpy Eagle lurking around your house, a dog that size is pretty safe. A Golden Eagle might possibly be a threat. But although a Red-tail could possibly kill such an animal, it is extremely unlikely it would attack one if other prey is available.
For a Red-tail, possible but probably pretty rare. A big female will weigh maybe 3.5 pounds (sometimes a bit bigger). Raptors don’t usually kill things much more than 2 times their own body weight, so anything over 7 or 8 pounds would be unusual. Red-tails typically wouldn’t take things much over the size of a cottentail rabbit.
I don’t know about a red-tail hawk, but my friend’s cat was taken by a bald eagle. She had been an indoor cat, but since he moved to a rather isolated area, he decided it was safe for her to go out. The third day out she was exploring the patch of grass about 200 feet from the house. He was on the porch, watching her, when an eagle came out of nowhere and took her.
I’ve seen an eagle steal a baby yorkie from a truck bed. My friend’s mother-in-law was a first time breeder and had 6 of them in a little pen with a hinged roof to transport them to my friend’s house. I was so shocked I just started laughing. The mother-in-law and her daughter were NOT happy with me for a while.
