I grew up as a city kid in London in the UK, reading books about wildlife and lamenting the loss of much of the megafauna in my own country. So it was a great pleasure to listen to Dave Sexton, who has had a long and wonderful career with RSPB (the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) and has played a key role in restoring some magnificent wildlife to Scotland – Jon
Adult white tailed sea eagle (Photo credit: Amanda Fergusson)
Centuries ago, the 2.5m wingspan of the white-tailed sea eagle was a common sight in the skies over the island of Great Britain.
But the 19th-century hunters that decimated wildlife in so many parts of the world were at work in Britain too, focussing particularly on predators that were seen as a threat to farming. The last known white-tailed sea eagle in the British Isles was shot in Shetland in 1918.
The white-tailed sea eagle is the largest eagle in Europe, and is closely related to the slightly smaller North American bald eagle. Other close relatives in the extended sea eagle family include the African fish eagle and, the biggest of them all, the mighty Steller’s sea eagle of East Asia.
The sea eagles are most closely related to kites and to vultures and share some of their relatives’ lifestyle choices – they are more likely to scavenge than to predate directly, though they are quite capable of hunting when necessary.
In a relatively short time, our human worldview has shifted from seeing the natural world as a big and dangerous thing, through power, dominance and destruction, to recognising that we have gone too far and trying to restore some balance and beauty.
Reintroducing species to former habitats is a skill we are still learning, and the earliest attempts to reintroduce white-tailed sea eagles from Norway to Scotland, in Argyll in 1959 and in Fair Isle in 1968, were not successful. But lessons were learned.
The next attempt, with greater numbers of birds and less human involvement, was made on the island of Rum in 1975.
For a long time, there was no successful breeding activity. It was only after ten anxious years of waiting that Dave and his colleague, Mike Madders, finally observed the very first white-tailed sea eagle chick on Mull in 1985. Given sufficient numbers, space and time, nature will find its way.
Subsequent releases on the mainland and in Fife in eastern Scotland bolstered numbers, and there has been a much more recent reintroduction on the Isle of Wight in the south of England.
But reintroductions are never just a biological experience; they are also a human journey. And while some people love the wonder of nature and lament its loss, others work hard to earn a living from the land and are wary of anything that might make their lives more difficult. White-tailed sea eagles are big birds and scavengers, and are likely to be easily spotted and photographed on a lamb carcass, even if other players – large crows and gulls, foxes, or disease – were the original troublemakers.
The early generations of eagles, amongst the heavily stocked flocks of Western Scotland, got an unfair reputation as ‘lamb killers’ that still persist to this day. However, more recent reintroductions, such as that on the Isle of Wight, see the birds being GPS tagged so that any suspicions of eagles taking livestock can be quickly verified. And since 2019, when the releases in the south of England started, there has been zero livestock predation events recorded.
Dave Sexton helping to collect a sea eagle chick from Mull for the Isle of Wight project (Photo credit: Nic Davies)
The eagle’s reputation was also helped somewhat by revenue from wildlife tourism. Hundreds of thousands of visitors visit Western Scotland every year to see white-tailed and golden eagles alongside other seabirds, cetaceans, otters and red deer.
A 2022 study commissioned by RSPB Scotland surveyed Mull’s visitors and found that 29% of them counted the white-tailed eagles as a major factor for their trip to the island. Moreover, the spending generated by these visitors account for at least £2 million in Mull’s local income, a healthy economic return for the local residents. In a world where many farms are diversifying their sources of revenue, money from tourism is welcome.
Nevertheless, the journey to restore our lost wildlife is slow. Local extinctions in the UK happened quickly because people viewed wild animals, particularly predators, with suspicion, and technology eventually gave them the means to do something about it.
While our understanding of the need for healthy, diverse and resilient ecosystems has grown, those old suspicions remain, particularly amongst many of those who work the land and live alongside wildlife every day.
Reintroductions of white-tailed sea eagles and beavers in Great Britain still cause concern and consternation for some. It may be a long time before we are willing to live alongside larger animals like boar, lynx and even wolves.
Despite challenges and resistance, the past 50 years of continued conservation work and monitoring has resulted in an estimated 200 breeding pairs of magnificent white-tailed sea eagles in Great Britain, restoring some of the majesty of the lost wildlife of our North Atlantic islands. 2023 also saw a White-tailed sea eagle chick hatching in England for the first time in 250 years. After years of being a ‘lost bird’, the white-tailed eagle’s return is a remarkable conservation success story.
When asked about his optimism, Dave, like all experienced conservationists, is nuanced. “But,” he says, “when you think about all the things that have happened, like the eagles and the kites and the ospreys, and beavers and white storks and great bustards, it’s actually pretty encouraging. There are days when you can get ‘out there’, and ten minutes from my house I can see otters, white-tailed sea eagles, and minke whales and dolphins out in the loch, and that gives me new strength and optimism that we have to keep at it.”
RSPB have released ‘RETURN – a 50-year story of repair, resilience and White-tailed Eagles’, a documentary celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first release of white-tailed sea eagles in Rum in 1975, featuring Dave and many other brilliant conservationists. Do watch it!
