Photographer Films Awesome Moment Bald Eagle Snags Hake Fish in Slow-Mo, Devours It on the Fly

A bald eagle hunts hake fish at Arran Rapids, B.C., Canada. Courtesy of Mark Smith

The day was rainy and the sky was grey when Mark Smith held his camera against the very strong wind and pointed it over the water. He stood in a boat amid the elements on the dangerous Arran Rapids, in British Columbia, to photograph the eagles hunting.

Almost in slow motion, a bald eagle was hovering very strangely above the raging water near Stuart Island where the hake fish are rushed in by the powerful tide during their annual migration in June. Smith, 52, a wildlife photographer from Florida, understood keenly that the bird’s behavior was not normal and what it meant: The eagle was going in for the kill.

“I remember very specifically watching this all happen, knowing that I had a moment in time that has probably never been captured, at least in this detail,” Smith told The Epoch Times, adding that the scene seemed almost set up for him to catch the perfect shot.

Then Smith, who was out on the water with his son, the boat captain, and several other photographers, watched the eagle suddenly pounce with precision and hit the water with a splash, becoming almost fully submerged before rising “like a phoenix.” Smith calls eagles and ospreys “masters of the air,” and to watch them hunt is to see how true that is.

A bald eagle hovers in the strong wind at Arran Rapids before dive bombing to snatch up a hake fish for a meal. Courtesy of Mark Smith

“It just slowly rose with its fish in its talons, kind of looked at me with all the water dripping off of it, and then it slowly passed its fish from its talons to its mouth and continued to fly right at me and swallowed the fish whole,” Smith said. “And the whole thing happened in about 15 or 20 seconds of time.”

Smith said he knew after playing back his viewfinder that he had “something the world is going to want to see,” and his son, who once encouraged his father to start his YouTube channel, guaranteed it would go viral. It did, Smith says, and it attracted 227 million views—which he says “is crazy”—and was shared by famous stars like Will Smith and Joe Rogan. This was the photographer’s peerless shot. For him, he says, nothing else even comes close.

He says everything just fell into place—the wind and tide, the bald eagle expertly pouncing its prey, the photographer in the right channel at the right time—and this happens when you spend much time in nature.

The bald eagle devours the hake fish in mid-air, securing a meal where competition for food is fierce. Courtesy of Mark Smith

The Floridian first flew here after learning that the hake fish at Arran Rapids are the world’s second-largest biomass migration. He began to notice that the eagles would also flock in and there would always be a great feeding frenzy. It was a perfect spot for wildlife photography.

The tide floods the hake fish into the shallow waters so quickly that they become bloated from sudden decompression. They float up helplessly with the bends and are easy pickings for predatory birds. “They’re suffering from their trauma, so they’re going to die a pretty slow death,” Smith said. “In a way, the eagles are ending it quickly.”

(A video captured of a bald eagle hunting hake fish at Arran Rapids, B.C. (Courtesy of Mark Smith))

These extra-large, puffed-up fish attract fierce competition. Pelicans or other eagles seeking a seafood meal will try to snatch one from angling avians struggling to fly off with their heavy haul. “It’s like they’re advertising this huge meal,” said Smith, who finds constant inspiration in the eagles’ dauntless determination.

Smith returns to Arran Rapids year after year to capture the life-or-death struggles between the birds and fish.

“Whenever you see them pull off these things,” he said, “it can also kind of make your problems seem not so bad.”

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