By MICHAEL RUBINKAM,
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jan 4, 2018, 8:30 AM ET
The Associated Press
In this photo provided by Jessica
Hartman, Monica Newhard, right, and her granddaughter, Helen Welch, hold their
pet bichon frise, Zoey, as the dog’s rescuer, Christina Hartman, stands behind
them, Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2018, in Palmerton, Pa. Newhard’s brother says an
eagle snatched Zoey from the yard. (Jessica Hartman via AP)
Felipe Rodriguez says he thought
he was hallucinating when an eagle snatched his sister's little white dog from
her yard, flapped its massive wings and disappeared over the trees.
Did he really just see that?
He had. Zoey the 8-pound Bichon
Frise was gone, taken by a hungry raptor Tuesday afternoon not 50 feet from his
sister's house on the banks of the Lehigh River in Pennsylvania,
Rodriguez said.
"It seemed like something
from the 'Wizard of
Oz,'"
he told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "I'm a city boy. This doesn't
happen in my world."
Even more astonishing: Zoey would
live to bark the tale.
More on that later. But first,
let it be said that eagles are quite capable of taking a small dog or a cat.
"It has been documented
before, but not that often," said Laurie Goodrich, a biologist at nearby
Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, a ridgetop preserve that annually records tens of
thousands of migrating hawks, eagles and falcons.
"Food is scarce right now,
particularly with this cold snap," she said. "The waterways are
freezing up. They're going to be looking a little more widely and taking
advantage of whatever might be out there."
