The golden eagle “likely had a behavioral disorder” that prompted the aggression, Alv Ottar Folkestad, an eagle expert with BirdLife Norge, told the AP on Monday.
What happened is “radically different from normal,” Folkestad said, adding that the attacks were likely all by a female eagle born this year.
“Details in the plumage make me believe it is the same bird. The plumage means that no two golden eagles are alike,” he said, adding that in the past days there were “favorable weather conditions” with high-altitude winds for the eagle to fly long distances over southern Norway.
In the most recent attack, a 20-month old girl was playing outside a farm in Orkland, a small municipality in the south, on Saturday when the eagle came “out of the blue” and clawed her.
