(NEXSTAR) – An eagle-eyed turkey hunter from Wisconsin made a wild discovery on Wednesday morning.
Neal Herrman, from Barron, had already harvested a bird in nearby Dunn County when he decided to continue scouting at other properties. A little while later, however, he stumbled across something much more fowl than a turkey.
“I noticed something white out in the field, just a white spot… I put my binoculars on, and I thought, ‘I’m pretty sure that’s a bald eagle over there.’”
Sure enough, it was. But that’s not all Herrman found. Inside the dead eagle’s talons was the head of a deer.
“I walked down to it, I saw it had a newborn fawn in its talons,” Herrman said. “I would guess the deer had been dead for three days or so. And the eagle only about 12 hours.”
Herrman, an avid hunter, knew he had to tell wildlife authorities of his find right away. So he drove a few miles out (he didn’t have cell service where he was) and called up brother-in-law Greg Moen, who just so happens to be an employee of the Dunn County Sheriff’s office. Moen then contacted the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), who instructed the bring the eagle to its offices — as well as the fawn head still clutched in its talons.
“When I picked up that fawn, it stayed right in [the eagle’s] talons,” Herrman remembered.
At the moment, Herrman isn’t exactly sure how the eagle died, although the DNR has promised to “keep him in the loop” if they learn anything.
“Everybody’s got a theory on it,” Herrman said, noting that a buddy of his believes the eagle was likely electrocuted by three-phase power lines located nearby.
“Anything’s possible,” said Herrman. “I don’t know.”
In any case, Herrman’s outing provided him with one of the wildest things he’s ever witnessed on a hunt.
“That eagle definitely had a death grip on that fawn,” Herrman said. “It was pretty crazy.”