Hawk Drops a Snake at a Family BBQ in Australia: Video - Hoax

Story:

Hawk Drops a Massive Snake at a Family BBQ in Australia.

Other Versions

1. Hawk throws snake at family eating lunch in Melbourne.

2. Hawk dropping snake onto family picnic in Melbourne.

Analysis:

An interesting video that went viral online purports to show a Hawk flying around, picking up a Snake from a lakeside grass, and then Dropping it onto a Family Barbeque in Melbourne, Australia. While many viewers believed what is shown in the video could be a fact, and even multiple media outlets across television and online shared it, the video of Hawk dropping a Snake at a family BBQ is not real.

Video grab from Hawk Drops a Snake at a Family BBQ in Australia, Video

Origin of Video

On 29th of August 2016 the 29 seconds video was posted to YouTube by a new user named Douglas Wong with a title saying “hawk drop snake on family bbq. lol.,” and it carried the description “so funny. bird dropped snake on my uncle last weekend. scary!“. Because what’s shown in the video is unbelievably interesting (and scary), the story became very popular online soon.

Flaws and Actual Facts

Firstly, the snake shown in the video does not appear realistic. And notably, a white color bird seen sitting on the footpath does not seem to be bothered/disturbed about the hawk-happenings shown in the video. Not to much surprise, couple of days after posting the video, Australian rules football club, Hawthorn website hawthornfc.com.au revealed that the video buzzing on the internet was their work — a campaign dubbed “Embrace the hunt” to help launch its Australian Football League (AFL) finals game. As you can see in the video at around 29 seconds, there is a blue portable cooler that has a Geelong Cats sticker on it. Meaning to suggest, the Geelong Cats play Hawthorn in the first round of the AFL Finals on Sep. 9, 2016. “We wanted everyone to know that it’s September and the Hawks are on the attack and hopefully we’ve succeeded,” said Hawthorn spokesperson in a statement.

So the video claiming to show a Hawk throwing a Snake at a family eating lunch at Barbeque in Melbourne is a hoax and it is mostly computer-generated. A somewhat similar video in the past claimed to show a huge Golden Eagle attacking and snatching away a Toddler kid in Montreal Park.