White-tailed eagle chicks return to Lough Derg

The release of two young white-tailed eagles at sites, including Lough Derg and the lower Shannon estuary has been announced by the National Parks and Wildlife Services.

NPWS Conservation Ranger Damien Clarke, collected the chicks from the nest, and the pair were closely monitored and tagged by Dr Allan Mee, Divisional Manager NPWS Éamonn Meskell and Conservation Rangers Shane O’Neill and Sinéad Biggane on a site close to Mountshannon Harbour.

This successful release phase aims to build on the successful re-establishment of this once extinct species over a three-year period (2020-2022) by releasing young eagles at three sites, including Lough Derg, the lower Shannon estuary and Killarney National Park. 

Speaking about the successful tagging Éamonn Meskell said “Caimín the adult male was collected from Vikna Island [in Norway] in 2008, and Bernardine the adult female was collected from Leka Island in 2020. The islands are only a short distance apart and the same collection team of Steiner Garstad, Bertil Nyheim and Fridthjof Pedersen collected both chicks. All these years later those same two Eagles are on our Island rearing two eagle chicks to fledge near Mountshannon on Lough Derg"