 The UK has the fourth largest golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) population in Europe, with approximately 430 pairs occupying territories, of which almost all are in Scotland. Demographic monitoring of the UK golden eagle population, primarily involving productivity and distribution of occupied and vacant territories, has been achieved by censuses every 10 years, and by more spatially limited but more temporally expansive annual surveys of approx. 200 occupied territories undertaken by the Scottish Raptor Study Groups (SRSG). Whilst these surveys have an important role for understanding the demographics of the UK golden eagle population, they are limited because individual golden eagles cannot be confidently recognised and information on annual turnover in the breeding population is lacking.
Recent modelling has suggested that the Scottish population does not have an overall favourable conservation status and may be close to decline, despite the apparent stability inferred by simple temporal comparisons of numbers of occupied territories, with persecution the principal national threat. However, adult survival estimates are currently only possible using imperfect methods from classic population dynamics theory and observations of age structure of the population (Whitfield et al. 2004b). To overcome this research gap, we are using non-invasive genetic sampling to monitor the presence of individual eagles over time. With the support of the SRSGs and others, we are collecting moulted adult feathers and mouth-swabbing nestlings for DNA sources that will allow us to identify individual golden eagles to address the following research objectives:
- Test the feasibility of using genetic markers to monitor turnover in UK golden eagles.
- Quantify site fidelity of breeding adults and hence quantify the contributions of breeding dispersal and fatality to turnover, which, in turn, will allow adult survival to be estimated.
- Contrast genetically derived measures of adult survival against those derived using indirect measures from population age structure, and re-model national and regional population dynamics.
- Examine the effects of persecution on turnover and adult survival.
 This project is wholly dependent on the hard field work undertaken by SRSG members. We would like to thank the National Birds of Prey Trust and the Helen and Geoffrey de Freitas Charitable Trust for their financial support of this project in 2007. Lab work is undertaken in collaboration with Wildlife DNA Services and is funded by Natural Research Ltd. We thank David McLeod for his help with GIS analysis.
Natural Research is teaming with SRSGs to look at populations of other raptors, and to assess levels of persecution. Browse through our “Recent Projects” page to see what is happening.
For further information about this project, please contact: ruth.tingay@natural-research.org
Eagle head photo copyright M. McGrady, Swabbing photo copyright L. Steele
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