White-Tailed Eagle to Make Comeback in Ireland
Date: 05-Jan-07
Country: IRELAND
Experts plan to reintroduce the White-tailed Sea Eagle, one of the world's largest birds of prey, into a national park in the southwestern county of Kerry as part of the scheme.
Eagle chicks from Norway will be released into Killarney National Park this summer, Eamonn Meskell of Ireland's National Parks and Wildlife Service told Reuters on Thursday.
"The hope is that after about eight weeks the chicks will have fully fledged and will fly out to the coast and then, with luck, they'll start breeding after four to five years," he said.
"To get them breeding will be a major feat but we wouldn't be trying this unless we thought we had a chance."
Some 15 chicks will be brought into the region annually over the duration of the project.
Kerry's rugged Atlantic coastline is an ideal habitat for the eagle, which likes to feed on the carcases of dead seals and porpoises, Meskell said.
The bird, which died out in Ireland in the early 1900s due to egg collectors and trigger-happy gamekeepers, has a wing span of up to 2.5 metres (8 feet) and in neighbouring Britain is confined mainly to the northwestern tip of Scotland.
In 2001, conservationists began reintroducing the Golden Eagle to County Donegal in northwestern Ireland -- nearly a century after hunters wiped out that species on the island -- and have released more than 40 birds to date.
