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One of the White-Tailed Eagles takes flight in Killarney National Park. Photo by Valerie O’Sullivan
TWENTY-ONE White-Tailed (Sea) Eagle chicks were re-introduced to Ireland this weekend with some let free in Killarney National Park.
Staff of the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, had been looking after the eagles since they came to Ireland from Norway on June 25th of this year.
The twenty-one Norwegian-born Eagle chicks were released into the wild at the four Munster sites – on the Shannon Estuary, Lough Derg, Waterford and in Killarney National Park. It is hoped they will bolster Ireland’s existing White-Tailed Eagle population.
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The chicks have been kept in purpose-built enclosures at the four locations while they grew, matured, and developed the feathers and muscles necessary for flight.
They were carefully monitored and tagged by NPWS staff leading the collaborative reintroduction programme, which began in 2007. The satellite tags will allow the project to monitor their progress and their integration into the existing Irish breeding population
Their release is part of the second phase of the highly successful project to reintroduce this magnificent, iconic bird back to Irish skies. Once a conspicuous part of Ireland’s landscape, they were driven to extinction by human persecution here in the late Nineteenth Century, a development which the Programme seeks to reverse.
Overseeing the Release in Killarney National Park, from left, Eamonn Meskall, Regional Manager National Parks and Wildlife Service, Dr Allan Mee, Advisor, White Tailed Eagle Project Phase 1, Danny O’Keeffe, National Parks and Wildlife Service district conservation officer, Philip Buckley, Project Site Manager, Shannon Estuary. Photo: Valerie O’Sullivan
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