A white-tailed sea eagle chick is thriving after its birth at Fota Wildlife Park in Cork Harbour in a boost for the State’s management of endangered species.
The sea-eagle chick hatched on April 13th to a resident breeding pair, named Áine and Tony.
“Through their attentive parenting the chick has successfully fledged,”Fota Wildlife Park says.
The white-tailed sea eagle is the largest eagle species in Europe, with a wingspan stretching up to 2.5 metres, and the birds were once a common sight along the Irish coast until they were hunted to extinction in the 19th century.
The birds are now a Red Listed species in Ireland and are of high conservation concern.
Over 200 white-tailed sea eagles have been released here since 2007 by the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), in collaboration with the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research and local farmers and communities.
The programme has been so successful that the population is now self-sustaining.
Fota Wildlife Park has been part of the white-tailed sea eagle recovery programme since 1991, breeding six chicks, including this one, in support of specialised conservation efforts.
The park has also played a vital role as a partner in the Breeding Waders European Innovation Partnership (EIP) initiative.
As Afloat has reported part of this project, Fota Wildlife Park has participated in the Curlew Headstarting Programme since 2022 and, to date, has successfully reared over 90 curlew chicks for release into the wild.
Curlew eggs are rescued by Nest Protection Officers from vulnerable nesting sites before being brought to Fota Wildlife Park, where the specialist conservation team incubates, hatches and rears the chicks until they are strong enough to survive in the wild.
Aileen Tennant, Fota Wildlife Park director said that the successful birth and rearing of the white-tailed sea eagle chick is “another positive outcome of the specialist native species conservation work that the animal care team carries out” there every day.
The national curlew headstarting project is made possible by the Breeding Waders EIP team, NPWS, Irish Rural Link, Michael Martyn Agri-Environment, Irish Wildlife Services, Dublin Zoo, Atlantic Technological University and University College Dublin, demonstrating the value of partnership in delivering these conservation outcomes.
A partnership involving the NPWS and Dingle Oceanworld has also helped to conserve Ireland’s endangered natterjack toad .
Since 2016, more than 13,600 toadlets have been returned to their native habitat, with a further 750 due for release this August.
In conjunction with the NPWS, Cork County Council, the National Marine Institute, and independent ecologists, Fota Wildlife Park also rescued 150 endangered, white-clawed crayfish from a North Cork river threatened by crayfish plague in 2024.
It has successfully bred 120 "craylings", and is currently working to establish new populations to be reintroduced into protected, plague-free "ark" sites.”
