ANOTHER WHITE-TAILED sea eagle brought here from Norway as part of an ambitious reintroduction programme, has been found dead in sheep farming country in Beaufort, Killarney, Co Kerry.
It is the third dead eagle to have been found in the area in the foothills of the Macgillycuddy’s Reeks near the Killarney National Park since early April. It is believed the eagle also died from poisoning.
The Norwegian ambassador to Ireland Oyvind Nordsletten has expressed his concern and has called for an end to the practice of laying out poisoned meat bait.
The introduction of the eagles into the national park in 2007 met strong opposition from local sheep farmers and from the Irish Farmers Association in the county.
The Killarney Chamber of Commerce and Tourism yesterday appealed to farming representatives “to issue a clear and unambiguous statement that there is no farming organisation support for such indiscriminate poisoning in Ireland”.
The IFA national press office said it had issued farmers in Kerry with a leaflet drawn up with those involved in the eagle project, urging farmers to use alternatives to control foxes and grey crows.
Seven birds have so far been confirmed poisoned, all of them in Co Kerry and in areas surrounding the national park. In all 14 birds have been lost, only two from natural causes. This latest, a male bird released in Killarney National Park in 2008, was found by a kayaker and a number of children on Sunday, on the river Laune, not far from the previous finds in recent weeks.
“The previous two birds tested positive for carbofuran poisoning,” the Kerry eagle project said in a statement. “A search of land in the vicinity by detectives from An Garda Síochána in Killarney and a veterinary inspector from the Department of Agriculture located several sheep carcasses in various stages of decomposition.
“A dead raven removed for toxicology from the land also tested positive for carbofuran. An investigation is ongoing by the gardaí and Department of Agriculture.”
The statement included the comments of the Norwegian ambassador who said: “We in Norway are deeply concerned about the situation and hope that all can be done to make such poisoning illegal. Norwegians and the Norwegian authorities welcome the white-tailed sea eagle reintroduction in Co Kerry as a positive step in restoring Ireland’s biodiversity.
“We hope that the unfortunate practice of poisoning will be ended so that this magnificent eagle, that we are very familiar with in Norway, can once again be part of the Irish landscape.”
Twenty eagles are due to be brought in from Norway this year.