Estate hits RSPB with legal threat as mystery of missing eagle grows
A ROW over the fate of a golden eagle deepened yesterday after owners of the estate where it allegedly vanished threatened legal action against the RSPB.
On Saturday, the bird charity appealed to the public after a satellite tracking tag attached to the young male bird roaming the skies above Aberdeenshire stopped working before nightfall on March 5.
Experts pinpointed the creature’s last known location to near North Glenbuchat Estate. They have aired suspicions it may have been killed in an act of wildlife crime, saying if it died naturally, the transmitter would continue working and lead them to its body.
The RSPB has suggested that ‘suspicious circumstances’ surround the disappearance of the bird, known as 338.
But yesterday, estate managers claimed to have produced evidence which suggested the bird was still alive as recently as Satur- day. It said the RSPB’s comments were ‘reckless and defamatory and the matter is now in the hands of our lawyers’.
A police search of the estate – where a satellite-tagged golden eagle was found illegally poisoned in 2011 – found no sign of the bird, leaving the mystery unsolved.
Yesterday, the estate said footage and photographs of eagles were taken on its moorland on two separate occasions over the weekend.
The new footage, filmed at 3.45pm on Saturday, has been submitted to Police Scotland.
Video cameras also captured a golden eagle on Thursday afternoon on the estate and that footage has been sent to police with relevant times and dates.
Laura Sorrentino, director of North Glenbuchat Estate, said: ‘RSPB seems to accuse first and think later without caring about the damage it does.
‘Our head keeper filmed what he believed was the “missing” eagle on Thursday and further footage was filmed on Saturday afternoon and photographs were taken on Saturday evening.
‘We have submitted both to police and what this does show is that eagles not only exist on our estate but are welcome.’ Conservationists have frequently voiced fears over the estate, saying other tagged birds also vanished in the same area in February 2012 and May 2013.
An RSPB spokesman said: ‘This doesn’t change our position but we welcome the new evidence, and it’s important this footage is given to Police Scotland.
‘The circumstances of the bird’s disappearance, the history of other disappearances in the area, and the fact that the police did a search of the area, suggest to us that there were suspicious circumstances.’