Have there ever been cases of humans being killed and/or eaten by birds?

Question

I realize that I'm one of the top contributors in the bird forum, but this is one thing that I never learned about in my research. Has something this extreme ever happened? For example, has a small infant ever been killed and eaten by a large bird of prey? Was there any point in human history where a large bird (now extinct) was large enough to kill and eat a human?

The Elephant Bird was the largest bird to have ever lived. It stood 10 feet tall, weighed 1,000 pounds, but *thank God* it was an herbivore! However, there may have been other birds of similar sizes that eat meat. Does anyone know?

Answer 1

Ostriches have killed people, but not for prey.  Raptors have killed many humans.

Answer 2

There were several large prehistoric species of birds that were carnivores, and stood very tall like your Elephant Bird. One was called the "Terror Bird" (Sorry, I don't know the actual scientific name). But I believe most of these birds lived 62 million years ago or longer, so they lived during the time of the dinosaurs. It is very possible that there were species around during the time of early man, and they could of easily killed a man.

WARNING: Graphic photo

http://justsickshit.com/wp-content/uploa...

This is an award winning photo of a vulture stalking a sudanese starving child. The vulture most likely ended up eating the child, because no way could the child of lived much longer. This is very common in africa, vultures feesting on the deceased dead. But they are also known to kill a weekend child or infant. A child in this state has no way of protecting themself, and would be an easy target and kill.

Horrible sad to think about, but that is really the only known instance I know of.

EDIT: Oh yeah, here is a link to a site about the Terror Birds I mentioned above

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorusrhaci...

It also states they lived until about 2 million years ago, and that is about when the first man came to be. So it is very likely this bird killed and ate our ealiest ancestors. Fossils show the largest of these birds may of stood about 10 feet tall

Answer 3

Not sure about the "terror birds" (phorusrhacids), as it depends if people were even in the correct AREA when those birds were around; they lived in South America.

The Haast's Eagle was a giant bird of prey that ate moas; it has often been speculated that they might have occasionally preyed on the early inhabitants of New Zealand. They were definitely big enough to get away with it.