Ambitious plans to reintroduce golden eagles are at serious risk after an Irish-bred chick was found dead from poison, conservationists warned today.
The healthy 10-month-old is believed to have been killed by powerful veterinary medicine on the fleece of a dead newborn or aborted lamb.
Lorcan O’Toole, from the Golden Eagle Trust, said the reintroduction programme could fail unless the use of poison by a few hundred farmers stops.
“Is our green nation so timid, so tame and so weak that we cannot tolerate several pairs of wild golden eagles?” he asked.
The bird, named Connal, was born and reared in a Donegal eyrie last year and spent the last four months on mountains above Glencar waterfall, Lough Gill and Gleniff near the Sligo-Leitrim border. It was found dead on Truskmore Mountain last weekend.
Project chiefs said 10 per cent of the golden eagle population has been killed, putting the entire project at risk.
In total, nine white tailed eagles, golden eagles and red kites have been poisoned in the last two- and-a-half years.
The trust said farmers using poisons, such as anaesthetic alphachloralose, pesticide carbofuran, weedkiller paraquat and nitroxynil, used in a liver fluke medicine which kills foxes and crows, were arrogant and selfish.
It said the toxins have been used illegally in Munster, Ulster, Leinster and now Connacht.
“This issue is about the illegal use of poison within Irish farming," Mr O’Toole claimed. “We believe the few hundred farmers using poison illegally are at variance with the huge environmental advances Irish farming has undergone over the last ten years.
“We have always fully acknowledged the support and co-operation of the sheep farming community in the northwest and continue to do so.
“But unfortunately, the poisoning of this golden eagle undermines the image of Irish food and weakens the potential for local tourism and damages the fragile rural economy in the northwest, we believe.”
Gardaí in Sligo are investigating and the trust urged authorities to bring in new rules for immediate farm inspections of all flock owners within a 5km radius of any poisoning.
Golden eagles first became extinct in Ireland almost 100 years ago.
Mr O’Toole also said authorities should be protecting eagles and kites under EU law while farmers need the support of consumers.
“Farmers need to question whether the actions of a tiny minority could undermine that consumer support,” he said.
“Farmers in Donegal bear witness to the fact that eagles can readily co-exist with sheep farming.”
PA