Real video of Snowy Owl carrying chicks on her back?

Claim:

A video authentically shows a snowy owl with chicks on her back.

Judgement:

A video posted to social media in October 2024 reportedly depicted the flight of a female snowy owl and her chicks.

A message on Wires shared the video and said, “A snowy owl mother flies with her children on her back….” A YouTube account with 1.7 million subscribers also shared the video.

One user on Threads responded“Wow, I’ve never seen little chicks in flight on their mother’s back.” That’s probably because the video was fake, created using generative artificial intelligence.

The origin of the message seems coming from an Instagram account with 2.2 million followers the real love of naturealthough the account holder did not respond to Snopes for confirmation. However, the account is full of videos and images clearly created with AI, including other short videos of owl chicks riding on their mother’ ridges.

There were users who believed the video was authentic and said: “Never knew they put their babies on their backs to fly. Awesome.” However, the Most comments on the Instagram account stated that the video was made with AI.

Nature photographer Tanja Brandt-Tier photography responded to the post with a series of facepalms emojis and told Snopes, “Yes, it’s fake. I wonder why people couldn’t see it.”

Another user said: “I see this as misinformation about nature that most people don’t already know enough about. Owls don’t carry their young on their backs in flight. They nest them.”

(Getty Images)

According to The Peregrine Funda non-profit organization focused on bird conservation from prey, like owls:

Snowy owls nest on the ground, so it is much easier for the young to leave the nest because they do not have to fly to do so. They usually leave the nest after 3-4 weeks, but do not master the art of flying until they are about 8 weeks old.

The parents will care for their young for about 4 months until the young owls can hunt and survive on their own. After two years, these young are old enough to find a mate, settle down and raise young of their own.

In addition, snowy owl chicks are usually gray until they are about 2 months old, at which point they are ready to fly on their own, according to the Owl Research Institute. A representative from the institute called the video “obviously fake” and pointed Snopes to a source with images the stages of snowy owl development. They also said that the team leader of Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology‘s snowy owl species report, Denver Holt, “has never seen or heard of snowy owls carrying young on their backs.”

Hence the color, size and behavior of the owls in the video in question Are inconsistent with real snowy owls, and supports its origins as an AI-generated video.

Furthermore, the video on Instagram is labeled as AI after, and the AI-generated content discovery platform Beehive moderation reported a 99.1% chance that the video in question was fake.

(Beehive moderation)

Snopes has debunked similar AI-generated videos of animals, including one baby peacockA giant maine coon catand a exceptionally large white rabbit.