LAST UPDATE | 30 May

THE FIRST MALE white-tailed eagle to breed in Ireland in over a century has been found dead in Co Clare and was possibly poisoned.

The white-tailed eagle, known as Caimín, held territory at the Mountshannon nest site at Lough Derg in Co Clare for the past 17 years.

Eamonn Meskell is head of the National Parks and Wildlife Service programme to reintroduce the formerly extinct white-tailed eagle to Ireland.

Under the programme, 200 white-tailed eagles have been brought to Ireland from Norway.

Caimín was released from Killarney National Park in 2008 and all of the white-tailed eagle chicks reintroduced under the programme are fitted with satellite tags, which enables them to be monitored and tracked.

Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Meskell described Caimín’s death as an “uppercut to the reintroduction project, but not one that’s going to knock us back”.

Caimín was found dead last Saturday and an investigation is now under way into the circumstances of his death.

Initial post-mortem results from the Regional Veterinary Laboratory indicate poisoning as a possible cause of death.

While Meskell said white-tailed eagles don’t often die from poisoning, he warned that he has “disturbingly noticed an increase in poisonings over the last three to five years”.

“We’ve lost chicks to poisoning and rodenticide poisoning, and the initial autopsy shows that Caimín likely succumbed to rodenticide poisoning as well,” said Meskell.

Meskell added that the “knowing destruction of this wonderful bird of prey displays a wanton disregard for our re-introduction and nature protection efforts”.

File image of a white-tailed eagle in Ireland Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

He explained that Caimín was taken from a wild nest in Norway in 2008 and was among the first consignment of 20 white-tailed eagle chicks to be sent from Norway to Ireland.

Meskell said these chicks that were delivered to Ireland in 2008 were nurtured and then released into the wild.

“Lo and behold, five years later, Caimín mated with another white-tailed eagle chick from Norway that was released in Killarney National Park,” Meskell explained.

“They were the first pair to breed successfully and ‘fledge’, which means that the chicks flew from the nest in Mountshannon in 2013, and that sparked off eco tourism there and 10,000 people visited to see the eagles and chicks that year.”

Caimín and Saoirse had 15 chicks, before Saoirse died of avian flu in 2016.

But Caimín went onto breed once more in 2023 with another eagle called Bernardine, who arrived in Ireland as part of a later consignment from Norway.

“Even though Caimín was picked up dead earlier this month, Bernardine is on the nest, raising a chick now in Mountshannon as we speak, so there is light at the end of the tunnel.”

Meanwhile, Minister of State for Nature, Heritage and Biodiversity, Christopher O’Sullivan, remarked that any loss in the wild that is not due to natural causes is usually the result of human activity.

“The tragic loss of a wonderfully aged bird, breeding happily in the Irish wild, is deeply regrettable,” said O’Sullivan.

“These birds are part of Ireland’s natural heritage and are important for our biodiversity, as they are a good indicator species regarding the health of our ecosystems.”

“We will continue with our efforts to introduce, nurture and protect these birds and I have tasked the NPWS with leaving no stone unturned to try to get to the bottom of this heinous potential crime.”