One of the first white-tailed eagles to fledge in England for hundreds of years has vanished in suspicious circumstances, alongside two more “devastating” disappearances of the reintroduced raptor.
Police are appealing for public help as they investigate the disappearances, which are a setback to the bird’s successful reintroduction. Their disappearance is being investigated by several police forces and the National Wildlife Crime Unit.
The eagles have gone missing in Sussex, Wales and Scotland. The chick, born in the wild earlier this year in Sussex, was one of the first white-tailed eagles to fledge in England for hundreds of years.
It is thought someone could have harmed or killed the birds, as the satellite trackers that allow the reintroduction team to track their location and movements had been cut off. Two of the eagles had their trackers cut off with a sharp instrument with the equipment found dumped near their last recorded location. In the third case, the tag stopped sending information on 8 November and no sighting of the bird has been recorded since.
White-tailed eagles are Britain’s biggest bird of prey. They were driven to extinction in Britain in the early 20th century, after being shot and poisoned to protect shooting interests.
Conservationist Roy Dennis and his foundation have been working with Forestry England to return the birds to England, and since 2019, 45 white-tailed eagles have been released. Several breeding pairs have formed, with six chicks being born in the wild for the first time since the 1780s. Because the project is new, with few birds fledged, targeting them in this way puts the eagles’ reintroduction at risk.
The conservationists leading the project are devastated by the news. Tim Mackrill, from the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation, said: “We monitor the satellite data, showing the bird’s minute-by-minute movements, on a daily basis and always investigate any suspicious or unusual data. It was devastating to find the stolen and dumped tags, particularly for the chick in Sussex, who fledged this summer and had only just begun its life.
“So many people in the area had shared the joy of seeing these birds breed again after hundreds of years and our ongoing monitoring has shown how well they were fitting into the landscape. To have that destroyed just a few months later is deeply shocking.”
The birds are sometimes killed illegally by those with game interests, because they are thought to predate on birds bred for shooting such as pheasants and partridges, say campaigners. Disturbing the birds or their nests is a criminal offence.
Three police forces are working to solve the mystery of the missing birds. On 26 September, a satellite tag belonging to a fledged eagle chick was recovered from the River Rother, near Petersfield in Hampshire. It had been removed from the bird using a sharp instrument. Sussex police are looking for information from anyone who was in or around Harting Down and Petersfield on the evening of 20 September.
On 13 September, a satellite tag belonging to a white-tailed eagle was recovered near Gwgia Reservoir, Tregynon, and Dyfed Powys police in Wales are asking anyone who was at or around the reservoir between 11am and 1pm or on access land near Bryn y Fawnog between noon and 3pm on 13 September to come forward.
Another eagle’s tag stopped transmitting in the Moorfoot Hills area south of Edinburgh. The last transmission was sent on 8 November and Police Scotland are investigating.
Steve Egerton-Read, the white-tailed eagle project officer for Forestry England, said: “We are returning this lost species to the English landscape and have had so much support from the public. These special birds are helping people connect with natural world and showing how with a little bit of help nature can thrive. We are asking the public to show this support again by encouraging anyone who has information that may help the police investigation to come forward.”
Ruth Tingay, of Raptor Persecution, said: “These reports are so depressingly familiar these days, we’ve pretty much come to expect them. Although there’s something particularly sickening about killing a white-tailed eagle, it’s no lesser crime, in the eyes of the law, than killing a more common species like a buzzard or a sparrowhawk.
“There’s no doubt whatsoever that at least two of these eagles were the victims of illegal persecution, given the clear evidence that their satellite tags had been cut off and crude attempts were made to hide them.”
