Meeting of the Parliament 11 February 2026 [Draft]
I thank the member for this debate. As an endangered species myself, I am grateful to be species champion for the once endangered golden eagle, and I even have the South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project in the Tweed Valley in my constituency.
From 2018 to 2024, 28 juvenile chicks were legally moved from the Highlands to the south of Scotland, establishing the current population of 48 to 50 birds. They are thriving because of the terrain, the supply of food and the protections.
I visited the secret location where the chicks develop into full-grown adults. They are released in stages on to platforms for food, returning initially to their camouflaged container homes until they choose to fly free for good.
Escorted by experts, the visitor approaches the containers silently across fields, carrying a tub of fresh kill. The containers are solid on the side the visitor approaches from, with grid walls on the other side, facing the hills, so the birds can scope their future territories.
Wearing a gauntlet for protection, the visitor raises a small leather flap in the side of the container through which they can present the fleshy morsels to the chicks. As I did so, this huge bird turned away from those hills and briefly stared at me and the food, in that order. To say that I was taken aback by the size of that chick is an understatement. It was enormous.
More scary was the predatory look that it briefly gave me. I was, indeed, coming face to face with the eye of its ancestor, the dinosaur—but what a privilege and what a thrill. I commend that project to anyone coming in once I have retired.