With the change in weather comes a change in mood. The recent heatwave brought summer vibes and good feeling. Todays drizzle and strong winds mirrored the despair and anger after hearing that the young male White-tailed Eagle that fledged from Dorset last summer, ring number G834, has ‘suspiciously’ gone missing on the North Yorkshire Moors, an area where many sat-tagged birds of prey seem to disappear or tags seem stop working, despite working absolutely fine elsewhere in the country up until that point. You can read the BBC article HERE.

The news article only touches on the potential cause very briefly, by mentioning that the police regularly investigates missing sat-tagged birds of prey on or close to areas associated with game shooting. But in truth, we can all take a very well educated guess as to what has happened to this poor young eagle, which will now just become another sad statistic rather than a fully grown breeding adult, producing young of it’s own.

This isn’t only devastating because of the historic importance of this particular bird, but also because we were there the day this bird was ringed and tagged having kindly been invited by Forestry England and the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation to help support on the day. Firstly, we’d like to thank and congratulate both organisations for working so tirelessly on making this project a success, despite these cutting set backs. The project leads Steve Egerton-Read, Imogen Lloyd and Tim Mackrill have done a fantastic job in building and managing the success of this project, and like all conservation projects they need to be built on perseverance and resilience. This bird in particular (plus several more) was viewed and enjoyed by many hundreds of visitors to the area earlier this year as he visited and toured Poole Harbour, and was also witnessed by several school groups during our School Bird Boat project. Regardless of your views on reintroductions, having these birds back in the landscape has generated wide-scale excitement and reinvigorated peoples interest in nature recovery. They help interpret a story of a species bouncing back from extinction, whilst helping build momentum to get even more done.

We won’t shy away from acknowledging what is likely to have really happened, and encourage anyone involved in species recovery,  to keep fighting the fight a never ever give up. All your hard work is starting to have a far greater positive impact than the negative stories like this that appear.

Imogen Lloyd from Forestry England ringing and tagging male White-tailed Eagle G834 last summer – Tim Mackrill

Male White-tailed Eagle G834 back on the nest after ringing and tagging last summer – Tim Mackrill