Silas Turner lists three strange and unusual events to which he's been witness.

In the first, he and his father, Don, were hiking in the mountains looking for wildlife to photograph.  Coming upon a steep, narrow chute, Don cautiously looked over the edge and spied a nice 4-point buck nibbling at some grass farther down.  He beckoned to Silas and said, "Look at that."

As the two of them watched the browsing buck, a cougar suddenly launched itself from the overhanging rocks onto the deer.  The two animals went plunging down the chute, kicking up dust as they went.

The last mental image Silas has of the struggle is of the cougar's jaws fastened in the deer's neck, and of the cat's front leg stretched around under the brisket of the buck.  The two animals disappeared into a thicket of alders at the bottom of the chute where some thrashing about took place before things went still.

It was only then that Don thought of the camera hanging around his neck.  Neither he nor Silas had any interest in going down to the thicket to investigate any further.

The second incident Silas mentioned took place on Lookout Mountain.  Silas saw a golden eagle swoop down the mountainside and grab a coyote.  With the coyote writhing and yipping in its talons, the eagle sailed on for perhaps 200 yards, gaining a little altitude.  From a height of 30 or 40 feet, the eagle dropped the coyote.  The coyote twisted and turned in the air, hit the ground, and took off running through the sagebrush.

Having survived the ordeal, one can be sure that it was a much wiser, if not more nervous, coyote.

Silas couldn't decide what the eagle's motives were.  Was the eagle hunting the coyote as prey, or was the eagle being vindictive and trying to rid the world of a competitor?

In the third incident, an eagle actually did use the method of dropping its victim as the means of killing its prey.

While watching some bighorn sheep, Silas saw an eagle swoop down and grab a lamb.  It sailed out over a cliff and released the lamb.  The lamb fell into a jumble of rocks, and was killed.  Several other eagles immediately appeared, and all descended and feasted together.