Horrified Springwatch viewers rage 'give us a warning next time!' after 'hideous' cannibalism scenes that 'shouldn't be shown' see owl 'pulled apart and eaten alive'

Daily Mail​

04-06-2025

Horrified Springwatch viewers raged after 'hideous'cannibalism scenes saw an animal 'pulled apart and eaten alive on Tuesday's episode of the BBC show.
The latest instalment of the programme saw Chris Packham, 64, and Michaela Strachan, 59, return to National Trust 's Longshaw Estate in the Peak District to give fans an update on a short-eared owl family.
The pair introduced the grassland species and their nest during the first week of the brand new series.
Chris explained: 'Last week we introduced short-eared owl's nest that we had found, the first time we've shown you these birds live on Springwatch.
'Absolutely beautiful. There were six youngsters in the nest, but they started to disperse pretty much straightaway.
'We kept an eye on them and last night there were only two left in the nest area, although they were scuttling out and back again.'
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They then shared a clip of them doing so, with Chris explaining: 'Here they were yesterday, coming back into that nest. The other four that we know are there have spread out into the Heather. It's a way of avoiding predators.
'[The] largest chick was screaming a lot, it was hungry, the adults delivered because they brought in two voles and then a pipit, which they had captured.
'Things is, it was only the large chick that was getting the food, it ate the two voles and swallowed the pipit hole.'
He explained that they ended up bringing more food back, but the larger chick stole it.
Michaela added: 'You may remember yesterday when we showed you the six chicks, there's a big size differences between the youngest and oldest one.
'They hatch at intervals, so the younger might be more than a week younger than the oldest chick in the nest, and very often if there's not enough pretty to go around, the younger one will perish.
'That is usually when they are very little. It seemed like they were all being fed and just yesterday I said that one was doing really well, but I'm afraid in that nest, things took a turn for the worse.
'And it really surprised us. It is a little bit shocking.'
Springwatch then played the footage of the chick eating its sibling, with Michaela adding: 'As you can see, that little one became weak and defenseless and the stronger sibling took complete advantage.
'It started pecking at the younger one which was still alive and I'm really sorry to say, I know it's hard to watch... but it pecked it to death.
'That was really surprising for us.
'As Chris said, they were fed four times, the little one could have taken some of that food, the bigger one took it, plenty of prey around, they were branching out, old enough to survive. We thought all of them were going to survive.
'But very sadly as you can see, that younger one didn't. It died. The older one made the most of it. It got rid of its sibling and it was very very hard to watch.'
Those watching at home were in absolute shock at the scenes they were viewing and rushed to X, formerly known as Twitter, to discuss.
'Just let the kids to watch some nice relaxing #Springwatch before bed... Oh. Owl cannibalism.'
'Really don't think they should have shown the owl being eaten alive #Springwatch.'
'Baby owl eating its sibling alive ffs. Give us a 5 minute warning next time.'
'Got to love #Springwatch. Just watched my first 5 minutes of this series and I've already seen one short eared owl chick peck a sibling to death and eat it's cadaver.'
'Jeeze could have done without being shown that older owl chick pecking its fellow younger chick to death. It's different it dying and then being eaten but to be eaten alive is horrible.'
'Owl carnage... #springwatch So I think let's switch off from the doom and gloom at #swfc and decide to watch a bit of #springwatch to calm me down and what do I see, a baby owl eat it's sibling and another dead baby owl fed to it's siblings! Give us Owls a break.'
'Ffs that was hideous...it didn't die and get eaten, it was pulled apart alive poor thing.'