Possible poisoning of white-tailed eagle an ‘uppercut to reintroduction but won't knock it back'
THE FIRST MALE white-tailed eagle to breed in Ireland in over a century has been found dead in Co Clare and was possibly poisoned.
The white-tailed eagle, known as Caimín, held territory at the Mountshannon nest site at Lough Derg in Co Clare for the past 17 years.
Eamonn Meskell is head of the National Parks and Wildlife Service programme to reintroduce the white-tailed eagle to Ireland.
Speaking to RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Meskell described Caimín's death as an 'uppercut to the reintroduction project, but not one that's going to knock us back'.
Caimín was found dead last Saturday and an investigation is now under way into the circumstances of his death.
Initial post-mortem results from the Regional Veterinary Laboratory indicate poisoning as a possible cause of death.
While Meskell said white-tailed eagles don't often die from poisoning, he warned that he has 'disturbingly noticed an increase in poisonings over the last three to five years'.
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'We've lost chicks to poisoning and rodenticide poisoning, and the initial autopsy shows that Caimín likely succumbed to rodenticide poisoning as well,' said Meskell.
File image of a white-tailed eagle in flight
Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
He explained that Caimín was taken from a wild nest in Norway in 2008 and was among the first consignment of 20 white-tailed eagle chicks to be sent from Norway to Ireland.
Meskell said these chicks that were delivered to Ireland in 2008 were nurtured and then released into the wild with satellite tags.
'Lo and behold, five years later, Caimín mated with another white-tailed eagle chick from Norway that was released in Killarney National Park,' Meskell explained.
'They were the first pair to breed successfully and 'fledge', which means that the chicks flew from the nest in Mountshannon in 2013, and that sparked off eco tourism there and 10,000 people visited to see the eagles and chicks that year.'
Caimín and Saoirse had 15 chicks, before Saoirse died of avian flu.
But Caimín went onto breed once more with another eagle called Bernardine who arrived in Ireland as part of a later consignment from Norway.
'Even though Caimín was picked up dead earlier this month, Bernardine is on the nest, raising a chick now in Mountshannon as we speak, so there is light at the end of the tunnel.'
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