WILDLIFE:White-tailed eagles have died because Ireland has been one of the few countries in the EU to allow the laying of poison to combat pests. Now, the director of a project to reintroduce sea eagles to Co Kerry has successfully campaigned to ban the practice, but will the eagles survive, asks BRIAN O'CONNELL
IT’S EARLY MORNING somewhere in Killarney National Park, and conservationist Dr Allan Mee is lifting the bodies of three young Sika deer onto a boat. Cutting through rough waters, we pause long enough for Mee to take out an electronic aerial and point it in the direction of undergrowth and trees. The aerial begins to talk back, faintly at first, then bleeping loudly.
The boat is pointed towards the area with the loudest noise. As we enter a quiet bay, Mee scans the skies. Suddenly, wings flap and trees rustle as a white-tailed sea eagle is disturbed. I’ve never seen one up close in the wild and, with a wingspan of seven feet, it’s an intimidating sight. The higher it soars, the more inferior I feel.
This height advantage over humans has plagued birds of prey for centuries. Particularly in Victorian times, man sought to kill or trap as many species as possible. Folkloric tales of birds swooping from on high to lift babies from prams or carry young livestock away from farms fuelled public distrust. Seven species disappeared from Ireland altogether and now there is a scramble to get them back.
As the boat comes to a stop, one of the deer is lifted onto land and tied to a chain. Nearby, a clean-picked carcass is all that remains of last week’s dinner. Above, the eagle circles and soars like a balletic fighter jet, waiting for us to move on so it can have its tea.
In total, 77 white-tailed sea eagles have been reintroduced to Co Kerry as part of a five-year project to restore the species to an Irish habitat. Mainly they are taken from Norway, brought over when several weeks old, tagged and released in carefully monitored locations in Killarney. Yet, since their reintroduction, almost one in every five birds has died, mainly by poisoning. It’s this attrition rate that now threatens the success of the project and has drawn concern from the Norwegian Ambassador to Ireland, Mr Øyvind Nordsletten.
“We in Norway are deeply concerned about the situation and hope that all can be done to make such poisoning illegal,” he said last May when one of the birds was found dead.
A significant number of farmers in the Kerry region had vocally opposed the project when it was initiated in 2007, yet increasingly that opposition has lessened as the benefit of eagle tourism has become evident. It is believed that the deaths have been the result of the actions of only a handful of farmers, leaving poisoned bait on their lands. Yet under a regulation loophole, their actions have been entirely legal.
Mee, as director of the eagle project, has consistently called for indiscriminate poisoning to be banned. “While some birds can die during re-introduction, what is abnormal is the level of poisoning in Ireland. That’s where the real issue lies. We’d be looking at very good survivorship in Kerry if it were not for poisoning.”
Ireland has been one of the few countries in the EU that has allowed poisoning on farmland to help control pests. “Most countries in Europe have banned poisoning. Norway banned it 40 years ago,” he says. “It was traditionally used to control foxes and probably required less work. Shooting is targeted and discriminate but the big problem with poisoning is that it is indiscriminate. You might put it out for foxes but anything can get it. And as we know all to well, eagles can pick it up.”
Now it seems that, finally, the Government has listened. Earlier this month, the Department of Agriculture announced it will soon be an offence for anyone to use poisons on birds or animals, with a fine of up to €5,000 or a 12-month jail term, or both, for offenders. The announcement has been broadly welcomed by animal rights campaigners and conservationists.
The next year or so is crucial for the long-term success of the white-tailed eagle project. As the first birds introduced enter adulthood and look to mate, it is hoped that the next year or two will see the first sea eagles born in the wild here for over a century.
“Our oldest birds are only about three years old this year,” says Dr Mee. “They don’t start breeding until they’re about five. Next year we should see some pairing. Two birds have already started to get adult plumage, noticeable by their white tail. The first round of breeding is likely to be 2012.”
Yet keeping the birds in Ireland may be an issue. Already, the eagles have started to spread their wings and some have turned up some distance away. The pattern now established is that they leave between April and October, so there are fewer birds around in the summer than the winter. Generally, however, the birds have taken to Kerry and, while they may roam for periods of the year, they invariably return.
“Some of the birds released in 2008 went as far as the Orkney Islands,” says Dr Mee. “The next stop from there was Norway. When we were tracking them we could see these little dots heading across the North Sea to Norway, and it was fascinating. But they turned back. After eight months away they arrived back in Kerry. Hopefully, they see it as home now.”
The Eagles Return, a documentary exploring the reintroduction of birds of prey to Ireland, will be shown on RTÉ 1 on Tuesday at 7pm
