THE number of birds of prey that die on estates in one part of Scotland could be 10 times more than official figures show, it is claimed.
Inquiries are continuing into the fatal poisoning of an eagle, known as Fearnan, found after satellite tracking equipment showed she was static in the same place on Glen Lethnot, Angus, for several days last month.
Wildlife artist Keith Brockie, a member of Tayside Raptor Study Group who has been monitoring birds of prey since the mid-1970s, was part of the team that attached trackers to Fearnan near Loch Tay in June 2011. The bird spent much of its life in Badenoch before moving to the Angus glens only last month.
Mr Brockie said the grim discovery is another addition to a growing death toll of birds of prey on red grouse shooting estates.
He said: "Four golden eagles with satellite tags have died on Angus estates in the last five years. Given that less than 10 per cent of eagle chicks are tagged, you can easily speculate what has happened to another 36 golden eagles in Angus.
"Virtually all of the eagles that are found dead have been killed illegally. All of the estates are trying to maximize the number of red grouse that are on the moors, so they try to kill anything that impacts on that."
A Scottish Gamekeepers Association spokesman said "significant progress" had been made in recent years and described the incident as "terrible".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article