New study into the diet of reintroduced white-tailed eagles shows they\u2019ve been eating about 70 different types of food \u2013 but not lambs. <\/p>
Juvenile white-tailed eagles pose no threat to livestock, a study from Forestry England has found.\u00a0<\/p>
The birds on the Isle of Wight have been found to enjoy tucking into a varied diet of hares, rabbits<\/a>, fish, cuttlefish<\/a> and even a marine invertebrate.\u00a0 While there had previously been fears that the eagles would feed on livestock, such as lambs<\/a>, the project has found no evidence of this.\u00a0<\/p> Typically, diet studies on white-tailed eagles<\/a> involve analysing the prey remains in a nest<\/a> at the end of the breeding season. But this hasn\u2019t been an option for this project, as all the birds haven\u2019t been old enough to breed \u2013 with the exception of one pair last year who bred unexpectedly young.<\/p> \u201cWe\u2019ve had to really innovate with our diet study,\u00a0spending thousands of hours in the field watching these birds,\u201d says Steve Edgerton-Read, the White-tailed Eagle Project Officer at Forestry England. \u201cThe advantage of watching the birds in the field\u00a0is that,\u00a0not only do we know what they\u2019re eating, but\u00a0we\u00a0understand how they\u2019re acquiring those meals\u00a0as well, building an incredibly detailed picture of how these birds are living\u00a0in the landscape.\u201d\u00a0<\/p> The study revealed that as the eagles aged,\u00a0both the prey items and\u00a0their feeding strategies\u00a0changed. Younger birds\u00a0fed more on mammals and\u00a0relied more on carrion. As they matured,\u00a0they\u00a0fed more on fish and cuttlefish, and\u00a0became more adept at hunting live prey \u2013 and at piracy.\u00a0<\/p> \u201cThis is when white-tailed eagles effectively steal meals from other predatory birds, such as grey herons<\/a>, marsh harriers<\/a>, buzzards and red kites<\/a>,\u201d adds Edgerton-Read. \u201cThat\u2019s a really important ecological role that had\u00a0been lost within the landscape\u00a0and\u00a0is being restored.\u201d<\/p>