There are a lot of times when life hands you something you weren't expecting. Of all such things, having an eagle drop a cat through your car windshield has to be way the heck up there on that list. But that's precisely what happened to a North Carolina motorist recently.
A motorist in western North Carolina escaped injury when the carcass of a cat crashed into the passenger side of her front windshield along a highway near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
In a call to 911, the unidentified driver on U.S. Route 74 in Swain County, near Bryson City, told a dispatcher that a bald eagle dropped the cat. Bryson City is about 65 miles (104 kilometers) southwest of Asheville.
It’s not clear if the feline slipped from the eagle’s talons Wednesday morning or was discarded simply because the big bird didn’t have a taste for it.
“You may not believe me, but I just had a bald eagle drop a cat through my windshield,” the incredulous driver said on the recorded 911 call. “It absolutely shattered my windshield.”
She wasn't kidding. Here's a shot of the windshield. Honestly, this thing looks like someone threw a bowling ball through it.
— Ward Clark (@TheGreatLander) November 21, 2025
That cat must have been 1) a larger-than-usual example, and 2) dropped from a considerable height, to bust the windshield like that.
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Here's the thing: The Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) feeds mostly on fish, but will pick up smaller mammals if the opportunity permits. I've seen them picking up snowshoe hares here in the Great Land, and those are notably larger than your typical cottontail. A grown eagle is easily capable of killing and carrying off your typical house cat, but it's probably in the upper end of their prey range. The eagle in this case must have been a talon-ted bird indeed, to lift what had to be a pretty good-sized animal, one big enough to smash a windshield like that; seriously, this thing looks like a deer crashed through it.
It's also not at all clear whether the eagle actually killed the cat. They are capable of this, but they will also pick up road-killed animals and carry them away. And, yes, if they have difficulty carrying their prize, they will at times just drop their find.
Eagles and other raptors can drop prey for several reasons, including having a poor grip or if the prey is struggling and the birds are trying to prevent injury to themselves, Weeks added.
Prey can also be dropped if a raptor is being harassed by another raptor or the prey becomes too heavy to continue carrying.
So, this may have been because what must have been a big cat was dropped beak-cause it was too heavy. It's also not at all clear if the eagle was fully mature or not; it may have been a juvenile eagle, who was just winging it. Let's hope that the cat wasn't taken alive, though; if that catches on with the North Carolina eagle population, picking up cats may be a trend that really takes flight.
I'll be here all week. Try the veal.
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