{"id":729619,"date":"2026-08-06T18:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T18:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/729619\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T18:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T18:48:09","slug":"rare-white-tailed-sea-eagle-chick-born-in-fota-wildlife-park-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/729619\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare white-tailed sea eagle chick born in Fota Wildlife Park \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The birth of a white-tailed sea eagle chick \u2013 a species once extinct in Ireland \u2013 has been announced at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/fota-island-resort\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/fota-island-resort\">Fota Wildlife Park<\/a> in Co <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/cork\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/cork\">Cork<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Management  say they are \u201cdelighted\u201d with the birth of the chick in what has been an important year for endangered native species conservation at the park. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">This includes the successful headstarting of curlews for release into the wild, the ongoing population augmentation programme for the natterjack toad and the captive breeding of white-clawed crayfish.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The white-tailed sea eagle chick was born on April 13th to the resident breeding pair, \u00c1ine and Tony, and through their \u201cattentive parenting\u201d the chick has successfully fledged. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The white-tailed sea eagle is the largest eagle species in Europe, with a wingspan stretching up to 2.5m.  They were once a common sight along the Irish coastline but became extinct  here in the 19th century due to human intervention.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">They are now a  red-listed species and are of high conservation concern. Since 2007, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/national-parks-and-wildlife-service\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/national-parks-and-wildlife-service\">National Parks and Wildlife Service<\/a> (NPWS) in collaboration with the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research and local farmers and communities, has released more than 200 white-tailed sea eagles at sites in Ireland. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The programme has been so successful that the population is now self-sustaining. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Fota Wildlife Park has been part of the white-tailed sea eagle recovery programme since 1991, breeding six chicks, including the one,  in support of specialised conservation efforts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Meanwhile, it has been a busy summer for staff at Fota who have welcomed several new arrivals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">On June 15th a critically endangered female Nubian giraffe calf was born.  The calf stood almost 2m tall at birth following a gestation period of 15 months. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Three endangered Asiatic lion cubs were born on July 1st. The animal is classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and survives today  only in wild population in India\u2019s Gir Forest. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The last recording of the wild population was 891 individuals in 2025. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The birth of a white-tailed sea eagle chick \u2013 a species once extinct in Ireland \u2013 has been&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[17713,177814,29343,90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-729619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-cork","tag-fota-island-resort","tag-national-parks-and-wildlife-service","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}