A plan to re-establish the once-extinct native golden eagle in Ireland appears to be succeeding, with eagles now flying above mountainous parts of Donegal and also sighted in Galway, Clare and Kerry.
The project manager of the Irish Golden Eagle Reintroduction Project, Mr Lorcan O'Toole, said yesterday that golden eagles introduced in 2001 from Scotland are now growing to maturity and the hope now is that the birds in Ireland will soon start to breed here.
"The project is going better than expected. When we started, we were hoping to release 60 to 75 birds over five years. While we have not released as many as that, the survival rate has been much higher than we thought," he said. Only three birds out of the 35 birds released to date have died. Twenty-two have been tracked, although the whereabouts of the remaining birds are not currently known.
"We are confident that in due course birds will breed in Donegal. It's very difficult to predict when that will happen, but it will be very exciting and hopefully we will see the first chicks born and reared in Donegal since the start of the last century," he said. Although the golden eagle was a relatively common sight over the hills of much of the west coast over 200 years ago, the native population dropped due to extensive persecution and habitat change.
It is estimated that only 14 pairs remained by 1900. Due to its increasing rarity, taxidermists and egg collectors began to compete for the remaining skins and eggs, and finally drove the golden eagle to extinction.
Glenveagh National Park in Co Donegal was identified as a suitable site for the reintroduction of the species. Initial concerns among the farming community were soon allayed. Not one lamb has been attacked and there has been close co-operation with gun clubs.
"Each bird that we have released is fitted with a small radio transmitter and signals have been received from Fermanagh, Sligo and Leitrim. Golden eagles have also been seen in Clare, Galway and Kerry and although they could be ones from Scotland we are pretty sure that they are ones released under the project in Donegal," said Mr O'Toole.
He pointed out that the reintroduction of the golden eagle is already having a positive tourism spin-off for the local economy.