Broadsword calling Danny Boy. We’re going where eagles dare to investigate the sad fate of beautiful birds of prey in 19th century Scotland.
A concerted effort to hunt golden eagles led to a massive reduction in their numbers in the 1800s. But why were they persecuted? And what can we learn from how many were killed to tell us how many there used to be?
Jason Harrison, who combines being a PhD researcher at Lancaster University with being Jan’s husband, joins us to discuss his work on sustainable mountain development in Scotland, and the eagles who live there in particular.
We discover what was happening in the Scottish Highlands when the eradication efforts stared, skirt around the politics of the Highland Clearances, talk about why landowners wanted rid of eagles (and foxes), and how they drove golden eagles from their habitats.
Valuable bounties were offered on eagles, their chicks and eggs – and you needed gruesome proof to claim the rewards – and it led to up to 75% of the population being wiped out. This is a tale of man against beast, where man was the definite victor, and where – to Jan’s delight – accounting record keeping is the key to understanding historical biodiversity baselines.
We discuss how place names can tell us where eagles used to nest; look at the status of the birds in Scotland and England today – and how the fate of England’s hen harriers now harks back 200 years; and wonder why there is no specific Sustainable Development Goal for mountains.
How do Wordsworth and the Lord of the Rings fit into all this? And what’s the story with Balamory?
Discover more about the University of the Highlands and Islands’ Centre for Mountain Studies here: https://www.perth.uhi.ac.uk/subject-areas/centre-for-mountain-studies/
And see the paper by Agetsuma on estimating previous populations from hunting data: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0198794