Watch: Eight golden eagles released into South of Scotland

27 August 2021

​Eight young golden eagles have been released into South of Scotland as part of the project to bolster the tiny remnant breeding population there, which has been suppressed for decades, largely due to illegal persecution.

The eight eagles were collected as chicks from nests further north with expertise and assistance provided by members of the Scottish Raptor Study Group. The eaglets were cared for in aviaries at a secret location near Moffat until they were fully developed, and were then fitted with satellite tags and given a final health check before being released in to the wild.

This brings the total number of golden eagles successfully released in southern Scotland to twelve, where they’ve joined a small number of other young golden eagles that have hatched in the wild there in the last few years and who remain in the area, all of them also being satellite-tracked to monitor their survival.

This lottery-funded project still has a number of years to run and more eagles are expected to be released in the future.
Up until now, the released birds and the wild birds have been observed interacting well and now the numbers are slowly increasing it’ll be interesting to see whether there are more flights over the border into northern England.
OTHER POPULAR STORIES TO READ: