A Vancouver man’s slow-motion video of a bald eagle swiping a salmon from a fishing boat has taken off on social media, being seen hundreds of thousands of times.
Ashton Phillips was on a fishing trip Friday at Rugged Point Lodge in Kyuquot, on the northwest coast of Vancouver Island.
Phillips, a co-owner of Crab Park Chowdery in Vancouver, said his group was sitting in a bay cutting salmon strips to bait halibut with, placing a large chunk of fish on the boat’s motor when it happened.
“I saw this one eagle kind of circling and it was along the shoreline, so I took my camera out to snap a picture of it,” he said. “All of a sudden out of nowhere, it started heading toward the boat.”
He managed to start recording video in slow-motion just as the eagle swooped in and snatched the fish in its talons, then took off.
“I didn’t even realize it was coming for the big chunk of salmon until obviously it snagged it and flew off,” he said. “It was a pretty surreal experience.”
But it wasn’t until he watched the video that Phillips realized he had caught “magic,” and that was validated after he posted it to Facebook Friday.
The video has since been shared by more than 20,000 people and has been watched some 842,000 times, with many describing it as “beautiful” and “epic.”
“Everybody’s been very, very positive about it,” Phillips said. “I thought maybe people would start saying ‘Well you guys baited it, you’re feeding the wildlife,’ but we didn’t. And it hasn’t gone down the negative road, so it’s nice to see people just really enjoyed the video.”
