Eagle Reintroduction Wales (ERW) - Ailgyflwyno’r Eryr Cymru (AEC)
The Eagle Reintroduction Wales (ERW) project was founded in 2016 by Dr Sophie-lee Williams at Cardiff University, in partnership with the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation and Wildlife Trust Wales, as part of her PhD project funded by a KESS II scholarship with Welsh Government (2017-2021). Since 2021, Eagle Reintroduction Wales has partnered up with Durrell Wildlife to continue the conservation journey to restore the White-tailed Eagle/Eryr y mor back to soaring the skies of modern Wales.
Eagles have been extinct as a breeding species for over 150 years and have no chance of naturally colonising Wales on their own accord in the next 50-80 years. While the restoration of both species is important to Wales, our efforts, funding and resources will focus on restoring the White-tailed Eagle prior to any efforts to return Golden Eagles to Wales.
Reintroduction programmes in the UK are not an easy or quick process. Reintroduction programmes are usually a strict, highly regulated, licencing process. In the case of restoring eagles to Wales, the statutory conservation organisation in charge of issuing licences is Natural Resources Wales (NRW). These licencing applications include comprehensive assessments and information about:
The biological feasibility - history, conservation status, population distribution, diet, habitat, genetics, source population.
The environmental feasibility - release location, suitable habitat, available nest sites & prey availability.
The ecological feasibility - positive ecological impacts, negative ecological impacts, regional habitats regulations assessments (HRA).
The social feasibility - positive socio-economic, and negative socio-economic impacts, public opinion survey, and local consultations with key communities and interest groups.
Project practicalities - release site, release and translocation strategy, risk assessments & partnerships.
There is an abundance of suitable habitats for both White-tailed and Golden Eagles in Wales. Research on the environmental and ecological feasibility is still ongoing for Golden Eagles - check out our Golden Eagle programme for more details. While our White-tailed Eagle programme is currently launching social feasibility assessments and building project practicalities to create a conservation programme to restore this species to Wales.
