Tag Archives: white tailed eagle

A NUMBER of White-Tailed Eagle chicks have been released into the wild at Lough Derg, boosting the ongoing project to reintroduce the species in South East Clare and a number of other Munster locations. A total of 21 chicks were released at four locations by staff of the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) who had been keeping the chicks at purpose-built enclosures at the Shannon Estuary, Waterford and Killarney National Park. The clutches had arrived from Norway five weeks ago in the hope of further bolstering Ireland’s existing White-Tailed Eagle population, and the reintroduction programme, which began in 2007. The re-establishment of breeding White-tailed Eagles at sites like Lough Derg and Killarney National Park has proven hugely popular with local residents, while the potential for economic benefits from sensitive, sustainable ecotourism was experienced in Mountshannon, when the first breeding pair nested within sight of the village in 2012, attracting thousands of visitors. Once a conspicuous part of Ireland’s landscape, …

A WHITE-tailed Sea Eagle, which was born in the spring of 2017, has been confirmed to be Ireland’s first and only case of the highly pathogenic avian influenza this year. The eagle, called Shannon, was found dead on the shores of Lough Derg in County Tipperary on January 31 and, following testing, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has confirmed that the avian influenza subtype H5N6 was detected in the wild bird. This is the highly pathogenic strain that has previously been confirmed in Great Britain and mainland Europe. It is the only case detected in Ireland so far. In a statement to The Clare Champion, the Department of Agriculture outlined that the White-tailed Sea Eagle is a re-introduced species, monitored by the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Golden Eagle Trust. “Any dead White-tailed Sea Eagle that are recovered are submitted to the Department of Agriculture’s regional laboratories for post-mortem. This was the only White-tailed Sea Eagle …

MOUNTSHANNON’s white-tailed sea eagles’ attempts at breeding this year have failed and while the cause cannot be determined, drones have been identified as a possible threat to the birds nesting. Dr Allan Mee of the Golden Eagle Trust, which oversees the re-introduction programme for the white-tailed sea eagle, explained that the failure of the Mountshannon pair’s eggs this year is “unexpected”. “They have been successful for the last three years, so we were surprised. We don’t know what happened for sure. There was anecdotal evidence of disturbance being a factor around the island or on the island,” he outlined. He said there were sightings of a drone in the vicinity but said he could not say conclusively the reason for the failure of the pair’s breeding this year and any number of natural factors could have been the cause. “All of that could be coincidental. If [drones] are in the area and then the birds fail, it is not necessarily …