The white-tailed sea eagle is closely-related to the American Bald Eagle. It has a wingspan of up to 2.5 metres, slightly larger than the Golden. As their name suggests, adult birds have a white tail (although juveniles do not!) and they tend to live near the sea or expanses of water. Their diet is mostly fish and sea-birds. They have yellow eyes and in Scottish Gaelic the Sea Eagle is called 'Iolaire suil na greine' (the eagle with the sunlit eye).
Sea Eagles are distributed throughout Europe and Asia as far east as China. Centuries ago they were found all over Britain, but by the early 1900s habitat destruction and relentless persecution by humans had left only a few birds in Scotland. Over-zealous gamekeepers and sheep-farmers shot or poisoned eagles for fear of them taking their livestock. In 1916 the last breeding pair was shot, leaving a lone female to 'gaze out over the wide horizon and wait'. She too was doomed and was last seen in 1918. At that point the Sea Eagle had become extinct in Britain.
Fortunately Man's attitude towards eagles is now more favourable. A small population of Sea Eagles remained in Norway, and it was decided to re-introduce some of these birds into Britain.The present reintroduction program began in 1975 when four Norwegian sea eaglets were released on the island of Rhum (off the coast of north-west Scotland). Over the next ten years, 82 young sea eagles were released - 39 males and 43 females. They dispersed around the west of Scotland from Shetland to Kintyre. Two even flew to Northern Ireland. Some of these birds died, which was only to be expected, but disturbingly two eagles were found dead after eating poisoned bait.
It takes up to nine years for white-tailed eagles to breed successfully. In 1985 the first all-Scottish eaglet fledged, and the White-tailed Eagle's 70-year extinction from the U.K. was at an end. However, rates of survival and breeding success have been low, partly due to adverse weather conditions, and the reintroduction of birds from Norway has been continued. In total, 108 Norwegian eagles have been released to date and 46 young have hatched in the wild. There are currently 10 surviving pairs and 6 of these have bred successfully.