A RARE young white-tailed sea eagle named after a member of the Kerry GAA squad has been saved from almost certain starvation following suspected poisoning.
The five-month-old male eagle called Star, the nickname of footballer Kieran Donaghy, was rescued by a pensioner at the roadside near Skreen, Co Sligo, last week and taken first to the Irish Raptor Research Centre in nearby Ballymote and later to the Golden Eagle Trust at Glenveagh National Park in Co Donegal, where it is currently being cared for in its own pen.
Dr Allan Mee, the scientist in charge of the white-tailed sea eagle project at Killarney National Park said yesterday that it is expected Star will be returned to the wild next weekend following laboratory blood tests to establish the nature of the poisoning.
The rescue of the bird comes soon after the PSNI launched an investigation into the shooting dead of another white-tailed female sea eagle from the Co Kerry project which was found floating on Lough Neagh in the North.
Nine eagles are suspected of having been killed by human intervention, mainly poisoning, since they were reintroduced to the Republic two years ago.
Lothar Muschketat, director of the Irish Raptor Research Centre, also known as Eagles Flying, said: “He was a local man who found the bird standing soaked on a roadside. He could pick up the bird like a wet cloth. It was not able to fly away. The bird was in a very apathetic stage and didn’t defend itself. When that bird arrived it was suffering from hypothermia. It was soaked and its plumage was covered by a kind of grease. It was dehydrated. We gave the bird fluid and put it into a warm place and fed it.”
Dr Mee was contacted mid-week and he travelled to Ballymote to oversee the transfer of Star to Glenveagh where there is a golden eagle project backed by the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
Dr Mee said: “I commend the rescuer highly. Star is a very lucky bird. One more day in the condition he was found in and he would have been dead.” Star is one of two eagles which have been fitted with transmitters beaming back data to the Kerry project via satellite.
He was released into the wild at the age of just two months in early August. Scientists were able to tell from the transmitted data that it had settled around Mullaghmore and Lissadell in Co Sligo.
Dr Mee said: “He was doing very well, feeding on gulls and dead seals.” Since the Kerry project was started in 2007, 55 white-tailed sea eagles have been released into the wild and there are plans to double that number.
The birds were last recorded in Ireland off the coasts of Kerry and Mayo in 1898.
It is illegal to poison or shoot birds of prey but Lothar Muschketat said: “Most farmers are open minded and are willing to learn. The problem is some people still believe in old wives’ tales handed down over generations that eagles carry away children, kill lambs and all these stupid stories, none of which is right. Eagles don’t carry children away whatever size and they only feed on lambs they find dead in the field. They are scavengers. They feed on dead animals.”