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| - A video posted to social media in October 2024 allegedly depicted the flight of a female snowy owl and her chicks.
A post on Threads shared the video and said, "A snowy Owl mother flying with her kids at her back....😊." A YouTube account with 1.7 million subscribers also shared the video.
One user on Threads reacted, "Wow never have seen Little chicks flying on the back of their mother in flight." Indeed, that is likely because the video was a fake created using generative artificial intelligence.
The origin of the post seems to stem from an Instagram account with 2.2 million followers called therealnaturelove, though the account holder has not responded to Snopes for confirmation. However, the account is full of videos and images that are clearly made with AI, including other short videos of owl chicks riding on their mothers' backs.
There were some users who believed the video was authentic, saying, "Never knew they put their babies on their back to fly. Awesome." However, the majority of comments on the Instagram account posited that the video was created with AI.
Wildlife photographer Tanja Brandt-Tierfotografie commented on the post with a series of facepalm emojis and told Snopes, "Yes, it's fake. I am wondering why people could not see."
Another user said, "I see this as misinformation about nature that most people already don't know enough about. Owls don't carry their young in flight on their backs. They nest them."
(Getty Images)
According to The Peregrine Fund, a nonprofit organization focused on the preservation of birds of prey, like owls:
Snowy Owls nest on the ground, so it is much easier for the young to leave the nest because they don't have to fly to do so. They usually start leaving the nest at 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 are able to hunt and survive on their own. After two years, these young will be old enough to find a mate, settle down and raise young on their own.
Additionally, snowy owl chicks are typically gray until they reach about 2 months old, at which time they're ready to be flying on their own, according to the Owl Research Institute. A representative of the institute called the video "obviously fake" and pointed Snopes to a resource depicting the stages of snowy owl development. They also said that the team leader of Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology's snowy owl species account, Denver Holt, "has never observed or heard of snowy owls that carry young on their back."
Therefore, the color, size and behavior of the owls in the video in question are inconsistent with real snowy owls, supporting its origins as an AI-generated video.
Further, the video is labeled as AI on the Instagram post, and the AI-generated content detection platform Hive Moderation reported a 99.1% chance that the video in question was a fake.
(Hive Moderation)
Snopes has debunked similar AI-generated videos of animals, including a baby peacock, a giant Maine coon cat, and an exceptionally large white rabbit.
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