Golden eagle satellite tracking (Republic of Ireland)

Golden eagle with wing-tag

In 1989 a project to re-introduced the golden eagle into Ireland and to ultimately establish a self-sustaining population was conceived.  In 2001 the first eaglets were taken from wild Scottish eagle nests and released in Ireland using a technique called ‘hacking’.  You can visit the  re-introduction project’s web page at: http://www.goldeneagle.ie/

In 2005 the Irish re-introduction team purchased two satellite-received transmitters, so that they could follow more closely the movements of the eagles after release.  Natural Research covered the cost of satellite time for these tags and provided in-kind support by collating eagle location data and passing them on to the Irish team. 

Although a bit to the side of our normal focus on wildlife research, Natural Research was happy to provide this support to both the project and the Scottish Raptor Study Groups, who provided eaglets for the effort.  The information that was collected was of some use to us from a research point of view in that it added to our understanding of how eagles range prior to breeding, a project we are pursuing in Scotland.  Click here to see our web page that describes our eagle dispersal project, and keep up with the Irish reintroduction through their web site.

Movements of re-introduced golden eagles in Ireland.

Photo: L. O'Toole