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Thursday 7 February 2013

Two more White-tailed Eagles found dead


Declan O'Donnell, DCO, with the corpse of a White-tailed Sea Eagle, found in Co. Cork (Photo: NPWS).

A White-tailed Sea Eagle found dead on the sea shore near Glengarriff, Co. Cork, has been found to have been poisoned. The bird, a female, released in Killarney National Park, Co. Kerry, in August 2010, had spent much of 2012 in south Kerry before moving to the Beara peninsula between Adrigole and Glengarriff in December 2012. On 18th January she was discovered by a local man on the water’s edge near Glengarriff and was brought for post-mortem to the Regional Veterinary Laboratory of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine by staff from the National Parks and Wildlife Service based in Glengarriff. Test results from the State Laboratory, Celbridge revealed that the bird had been poisoned, presumably as a result of eating carrion. Earlier in the week another dead eagle had been found at Derrynane, near Caherdaniel, Co. Kerry but it was not possible to determine the cause of death of this bird (with thanks to Allan Mee).