Two imperial eagles are now flying free in the Sierra de Oria, with GPS to track their movements
The Andalusian regional government has released in the Sierra de Oria public forest two young imperial eagles, rescued from a nest in Granada, and will track them by GPS.
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The Sierra de Oria has two new neighbours, and not just any neighbours. The Andalusian regional government (Junta de Andalucía) has released in the Sierra de Oria public forest two young specimens of the Iberian imperial eagle, a bird of prey that lives only on the Iberian Peninsula and is listed as endangered, the regional ministry of Sustainability and Environment reported this Monday.
The two eagles were rescued from a nest in Granada while they were still chicks and completed their rearing at a Junta Threatened Species Recovery Centre. The release was attended by the mayor of Oria, Marcos Reche, and the delegate for Sustainability and Environment in Almería, Manuel de la Torre.
Both carry a GPS transmitter. According to Emilio Retamosa, head of the Geodiversity and Biodiversity department at the Delegation in Almería, “they have been fitted with GPS transmitters with the aim of helping to understand the dispersal areas”. In other words, finding out where they move, where they settle, even if only temporarily, and how they connect with other population nuclei of the species.
A species making a comeback
There are now 191 breeding pairs in Andalusia, whereas 25 years ago the estimate was fewer than 30, and the species now exceeds 1,000 pairs. In Granada, the Junta confirmed in 2017 the first successful nesting after almost eight decades without records, and today that province has 15 territories.
Almería is the next step. Thanks to the GPS tagging of young birds, the first territorial pairs have been detected in the province, and this year one of them went as far as building a nest, although in the end no eggs were laid. According to the Junta, the young birds are being located in areas with plenty of wild rabbit, the basis of their diet: where it is abundant, it can make up 70% of what they eat.
Power lines, poison and shooting
The recovery plan includes nesting platforms in the areas where the species is appearing, the correction of dangerous pylons on power lines, where electrocution causes up to half of all deaths, and the fight against poison and shooting. Working on it are technicians from AMAYA and staff from the regional ministry, including biologists and environmental officers, and the hunting sector, hunters’ societies and the Andalusian Hunting Federation also collaborate in the eagle’s conservation.
For Oria, a village of 2,219 residents according to the padrón (municipal register) figures from the INE, Spain’s National Statistics Institute, as of 1 January 2025, its sierra is from now on the starting point for two birds of an endangered species. In the coming months, it will be the transmitters that tell whether the Sierra de Oria ends up being their home.
