{"id":116443,"date":"2025-09-03T10:03:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T10:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/116443\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T10:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T10:03:09","slug":"farmer-claims-sea-eagles-snatched-his-five-shetland-pony-foals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/116443\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmer claims sea eagles snatched his five Shetland pony foals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Benjamin RussellBBC Scotland News<\/p>\n

\"PAPA Media<\/p>\n

Sea eagles were reintroduced into Scotland in the 1970s after being driven to near-extinction<\/p>\n

A farmer from South Uist claims sea eagles are behind the disappearance of five Shetland pony foals from his hillside croft.<\/p>\n

Donald John Cameron said they vanished without a trace over a nine-week period between May and July, and that he has often seen the birds of prey circling his animals.<\/p>\n

Sea eagles, also known as white-tailed eagles, are known to attack livestock and farmers claim to have seen them carrying lambs away<\/a>. <\/p>\n

However, the National Centre for Birds of Prey believed it was “most unlikely” that sea eagles would be capable of flying off with a foal.<\/p>\n

Scotland’s nature agency NatureScot said that while there was “no direct evidence” the birds were responsible, they would be “analysing prey remains from sea eagle nests” on the island. <\/p>\n

\"DonaldDonald John Cameron<\/p>\n

Donald John Cameron says five foals have vanished over a nine-week period<\/p>\n

Mr Cameron keeps the herd of ponies as part of his agritourism business, Long Island Retreats, which he runs with his partner Lindsay Robertson.<\/p>\n

Speaking to BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme, he said<\/a>: “We advertise our business to have pony experiences and we would expect to have foals there.<\/p>\n

“Yes, you can lose animals but to lose five is totally out of it, and I haven’t seen or found any carcasses, so whatever is happening to them – they’re disappearing.”<\/p>\n

Mr Cameron said it was unlikely the foals had been taken by people. <\/p>\n

“You couldn’t rule it out, but again, would you lose five? And we’ve never had this before.”<\/p>\n

\"DonaldDonald John Cameron<\/p>\n

The couple’s four-year-old daughter Cara had been close to one of the foals that disappeared<\/p>\n

Mr Cameron said that the behaviour of the foals’ mothers suggested the animals were taken by a predator. <\/p>\n

“Usually, if an animal loses a calf or a foal or a lamb, they will stay with the dead animal,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Cameron added that the mare of the first animal they lost “went back on her own to the area she was last with her foal”. <\/p>\n

“She spent a lot of time sniffing the ground and when she moved away from that piece of ground, I scanned that ground very thoroughly with the dogs to see if they could pick up anything and I found nothing.”<\/p>\n

How much does a Shetland pony foal weigh?<\/p>\n

Mr Cameron said some of the smaller foals would weigh about 10kg, the equivalent of a lamb which is four or five weeks old.<\/p>\n

Director of the National Centre for Birds of Prey, Charlie Heap, thought it unlikely sea eagles could fly off with that size of an animal.<\/p>\n

He said: “Like all birds, they (sea eagles) are miracles of engineering and of lightness and the largest sea eagle you’re going to find is going to be about 5kg.<\/p>\n

\"DonaldDonald John Cameron<\/p>\n

The foals are said to have vanished without a trace over a nine-week period<\/p>\n

“Just to give you a comparison – that’s about the size of a reasonable size house cat. They are only capable of carrying their own weight.<\/p>\n

“Like all wild animals, they don’t want to put themselves in a position where they may end up injured.”<\/p>\n

He added: “I have no idea what’s happening to this poor chap’s foals. I do feel his pain. I would suggest he’s looking in the wrong direction for the culprit.”<\/p>\n

Inspecting sea eagle nest sites<\/p>\n

A NatureScot spokesperson said they would be inspecting sea eagle nest sites near Mr Cameron’s home as part of their work to tackle the wider problem of predation. <\/p>\n

They added that they had previously spoken to Mr Cameron about concerns to other livestock. <\/p>\n

The spokesperson said: “We provided advice on issues of lamb predation reported by Mr Cameron at a site visit in 2023, including a wide range of support options available through the sea eagle management scheme. <\/p>\n

“Some of these options may be helpful in protecting both sheep and ponies.<\/p>\n

“We have not received an application to the scheme from Mr Cameron, but we would welcome discussing this further with him.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Benjamin RussellBBC Scotland News PA Media Sea eagles were reintroduced into Scotland in the 1970s after being driven…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-116443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}