Ireland Recovery

The Highland Foundation for Wildlife has played an integral part in a very exciting project: the reintroduction of the golden eagle to Ireland.  The aim of the project is to re-establish a viable golden eagle breeding population in the northwest of the Republic of Ireland.  Scotland is aiding the project by providing donor stock, and six week old golden eagle chicks are caught in Scotland and kept in holding cages in Ireland before being released.  The aim is to collect and release 75 birds, with up to 12 taken each year.

Photo by Laurie Campbell

We have assisted the Irish Golden Eagle Project from its inception by assisting with feasibility studies in Glenveagh National Park and then later on by helping with the collection of chicks in the Highlands, the feeding and holding of the young before transfer to Ireland, the export paperwork as a Balai Directive licensed premises and the fitting of radios and wing-tags in Donegal. 

Irish project manager Lorcan O'Toole collecting a Scottish eaglet for translocation

Female feeding 2 chicks in Glenveagh National Park

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We consider this to be an excellent and really important project and were extremely pleased for the project team in Donegal that they had their first pair of golden eagles successfully rear a chick in 2007 – the first for 70 years or more, and have had further success since, with a total of six young successfully fledged up until 2010.  We are proud to have been a help to the Golden Eagle Trust of Ireland.

For more information visit their website at www.goldeneagle.ie