ATTEMPTS WILL be made next week to lift a temporary suspension of licences to export Golden Eagle chicks to Ireland from Scotland because of the poisoning of one of the Glenveagh National Park birds last month.
Lorcan O’Toole, manager of the Golden Eagle Trust, confirmed that Scottish National Heritage had ordered a full review of the Irish operation and had temporarily stopped issuing a licence for birds to be exported here.
He said Scottish National Heritage had come under criticism from the Scottish Gamekeepers Association for allowing eagles to be sent to a country where the poisoning of birds was not completely prohibited.
He said the Scottish review cast a doubt over the programme in Co Donegal which had managed to establish four “territorial” areas. Birds have been breeding in those areas since the programme began in 2001 for the first time since the eagles became extinct here in 1912.
“I am travelling to Edinburgh on Tuesday next with officials from the National Parks and Wildlife Service who are partners in this project to try and persuade the SNH to continue issuing the licences so the project can continue,” Mr O’Toole added
He said a loophole in the anti- poisoning Department of Agriculture regulations allowed landowners to lay poisoned meat on condition they displayed notices to that effect and inform local gardaí.
“No Garda station in the area in which we operate has been informed that poison has been laid and yet one of the birds was poisoned, the one we found on February 19th last.”
Mr O’Toole said he was also examining the possibility that one of the eagles had been shot recently in Co Mayo, but this could not be confirmed. The remains of five other birds had been found but none of them had been poisoned. Some had been in poor condition and one had suffered an injury.
He said the Scottish authorities had provided 53 birds to the project since 2001 and he hoped it could continue if they were able to persuade them the birds would be protected from poisoning.
“I have to say the Irish Farmers Association in Donegal has been very supportive of the reintroduction programme, but birds had been lost to persecution in the area.”
Some, he said, may have been shot and the nests of other birds may have been robbed.