We’re often asked by colleagues overseas why attitudes in the UK towards birds of prey are so ignorant and outdated.
Here’s one explanation – sensationalist nonsense being published in the media. We’ve seen this many times before, including here and here when the Scottish Gamekeepers Association were writing to the Scottish Government fearing that white-tailed eagles might eat children.
Here’s another classic example of unfounded hysteria from the last few days. This is an unsubstantiated story about an alleged eagle attack on a dog in Essex and unbelievably it made front page news! (Thanks to the blog reader who sent this photo).
At least three other tabloids also covered it:
Note the telling hallmarks of a tabloid story – the woman was pregnant, the alleged incident happened near a primary school, there was blood, the eagle was ‘giant’, it ‘almost blinded’ the dog and it was a ‘savage attack’.
The fact that there was no photographic evidence nor credible ID of the bird matters not, apparently. Some of the tabloids have illustrated the news article with a stock photo of a white-tailed eagle and others have mentioned golden eagles.
Meanwhile, the Irish Farmers Journal ran with an article recently, claiming that white-tailed eagles had been killing sheep:
In an unusual but welcome u-turn, the paper then ran with this follow-up article a couple of days ago after being contacted by Dr Allan Mee who has led the white-tailed eagle reintroduction project in Ireland since 2007. Well done, journalist Amy Forde and the editor of the Irish Farmers Journal for more measured, responsible reporting.
Raptor Persecution UK 
Such twaddle!
My amateur research into the activity of Ravens in west central Scotland, associated with sheep farming, revealed only benign behaviour. Up to 120 of these alleged so-called predators were observed in fields where lambs were being born, over seven consecutive years, and NOT ONE newborn lamb was attacked by a Raven. So much for them pecking out lambs’ eyes! The Ravens were simply feeding on after-births, and some ewes even stood still while the Ravens cleaned their rear ends. My point is that, without insulting the entire farming community, there is without doubt a vocal sub-community who make fictitious claims about Ravens being agricultural pests. I suspect the same applies regarding White-tailed (and Golden) Eagles.
I should have made it clear that adult Ravens will feed on moribund or dead sheep or lambs, in their role as scavengers only. Obviously this is not worthy of shooting or poisoning the birds.
Giant Eagle in Essex ? was Gandalf the Grey there too?
Perhaps it’s time that the media were accountable for erroneous statements, significant fines might encourage accuracy of assertions?
I used to ask if sensible folk read such rags, but these days of out of control media frenzies ….
And presumably no mention of any ‘giant’ raptor in this area from the dedicated twitchers, or even those remotely interested in seeing unusual birds in unusual places.