If the Unloved Birds’ Club has an apex predator in its midst, then it is surely the white-tailed eagle
What part–if any–did the white-tailed eagle play in the mysterious disappearance of a group of Shetland foals? Mark Cocker investigates
If the Unloved Birds’ Club has an apex predator in its midst, then it is surely this giant of a beast. The white-tailed eagle is our largest raptor and among the biggest of all British birds. Everything about it is impressive: the huge talons, the deep hook-tipped beak, the loud, almost goose-like hacking call, but, above all, the square-ended 8ft wingspan.
Equally noteworthy in a separate sphere is its glorious flexibility as a predator. It will catch and devour animals ranging in size from lemmings or small chicks to large wildfowl. It will rob other raptors of their kills. It will — we should note — tackle the seven biggest species on the unloved bird-list, including herring and great black-backed gull, cormorant and greylag goose. For this predation alone we should perhaps learn to love it.
With a watery whirl of barn-door wings, a white-tailed eagle swoops upon a fish, one of its many victims.
Yet, white-tailed eagles are not too regal to enjoy carrion, from whales and reindeer to strandline fish. Ironically, it is those clean-up operations of dead animals that have caused the species more trouble than any other part of its lifestyle. The birds were once found from the English South Coast to the outer Scottish isles, but were driven inexorably to the margins of Britain by an unofficial coalition of shepherds, landowners and keepers. The issue propelling that long history of persecution was an old charge against the eagle as a killer of livestock.
By 1918, the last ever individual was eliminated and eagles were absent as breeding birds until a reintroduction campaign was initiated on the inner Hebridean island of Rum in 1975. The organisers could never perhaps have imagined how successful their eagle project would become. Today, the breeding total is put at about 150 pairs, most of them concentrated in the Western Isles, with strongholds on Lewis, Skye and Mull, but a new initiative launched on the Isle of Wight in 2019 has restored the species to the South Coast.
Several members of Parliament have called for an eagle cull because of the birds' talents as predators.
These patient works may have brought back a magnificent eagle, but they have also resurrected the accusations against them as killers of sheep. Several members of Parliament have called for an eagle cull. A bird released on the Isle of Wight was poisoned by rodenticides at a Dorset site in 2019 and last summer saw a highly publicised charge by a Hebridean farmer that eagles may have taken five foals from his herd of Shetland ponies.
Few would deny that a predator so flexible in matters of diet will readily take a free meal. It is when its status as a consumer of dead animals crosses a line to make it a killer of live, healthy stock that the problems arise. However, let’s first consider the case of the mysteriously disappearing Shetland foals.
Environmentalists argued that it is nigh-on impossible for an eagle to perform such a feat: the ponies weigh two to five times as much as the bird. No matter how broad those barn-door wings, an eagle could never fly off with prey weighing up to 37lb.
Searches around nests of the nearest breeding eagles corroborated this first-principle physics: no pony remains were ever found. Yet the story garnered widespread media coverage founded purely on supposition. Like almost all of the Unloved Birds’ Club controversies, it is not a bird problem: it is a human problem. Entrenched positions on both sides make it so difficult to achieve any kind of compromise.
Right now, our 150 pairs represent only a fraction more than 1% of the European total of white-tailed eagles.
Let’s try a little thought experiment. A solution could be found if eagles were allowed to reach their full carrying capacity in the British Isles. Then, if a ‘rogue’ bird were proven to take livestock (such as lambs and piglets), we could act, if necessary, even eliminating that individual. The eagle population would be secure and the farmer could sleep at night.
Environmentalists would probably be horrified by such proposals, but no more than their opponents by a vision of eagle numbers climbing to their full breeding extent in Britain. At present, we should note that our 150 pairs represent only a fraction more than 1% of the European total. Thus both parties continue arguing, entrenched and siloed, with no agreement in sight. Given the slow, steady rise in eagle numbers in Britain, the disagreements over them will continue. Perhaps all we can say is, watch this space.
This feature originally appeared in the June 17, 2026, print edition of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.
