Rabbit hunter attacked by owl

A rabbit hunter is recovering from an attack by an owl in Digby County, Nova Scotia, Canada on Tuesday night. Kevin O’Neil, 55, was coming home from checking his rabbit snares in Mink Cove. He had gone in towards his hunting camp and saw the owl sitting in a tree.



He says he talked to it. "I kind of looked up at it jokingly and said to it, 'You bugger, you better not be eating my rabbits,'" he said. A few minutes later O'Neil says he heard a swoosh coming at him in the dark. "It swooped down and struck me right in the face. Feet first," he said.

"Drove three of its talons in my forehead and the other three right around my right eye. One in the corner, one in my eyebrow and one in the corner of my nose. The blood just started running out of me. It knocked me down." O'Neil said he was carrying a shotgun and turned it on the owl as it returned to a tree. The owl didn't attack again so he walked out of the woods without firing.



"He's one lucky owl, that's all I can say," he said. O'Neil said he thinks the bird, likely a barred owl, might have been protecting a nest. He has several cuts around his eye, but said two days after the attack he's recovering well. "It was pretty freaky," he said. "It was different."