In January we blogged about a forthcoming new book that tells the inside story of the reintroduction of sea eagles to Scotland. That book, A Saga of Sea Eagles written by John Love has been published today.
John Love’s name will always be synonymous with the reintroduction of white-tailed eagles to Scotland. He was the original Sea Eagle Reintroduction Project Officer back in 1975, living on the Isle of Rum in Western Scotland and releasing a total of 82 Norwegian sea eagles in what was at the time an ambitious and pioneering effort.
He wrote a highly acclaimed book about the project in 1983 (The Return of the Sea Eagle) and he has now updated the story with his latest book, A Saga of Sea Eagles.
So much has happened in the intervening 38 years. A second re-introduction phase took place between 1993-1998 with a further 56 sea eagles reintroduced in Wester Ross, and then more recently a third reintroduction phase began in 2007 with the East Scotland Reintroduction Project, the same year as the Irish Reintroduction Project began. Sea eagles are now firmly back where they belong, although unbelievably the persecution that originally wiped them out from these isles about 100 years ago is still a threat (cf the alleged felling of a sea eagle nest tree in Angus this year – see here) and still limits their potential spread to other parts of their former range.
A Saga of Sea Eagles is published today as a 224-page softback, priced at £19.99. Full details available on the publisher’s website here.
This is the same publisher (Whittles Publishing) that produced A Life of Ospreys by Roy Dennis in 2008, Kestrels for Company by Gordon Riddle in 2011 and Wildlife Crime: The Making of an Investigations Officer by Dave Dick in 2012.
Raptor Persecution UK 