Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Vertebrate > bird > Bird |
| Red List Status: | Near Threatened (Breeding) [NT(br)] |
| D5 Status: | Included in the baseline Red List Index for England (Wilkins, Wilson & Brown, 2022) |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Aquila chrysaetos |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | (Linnaeus, 1758) |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | Stanbury et al., 2021 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Extinct as a breeding bird in England. Some dispersing juveniles / immatures from Scotland. Alongside potential for natural recovery, test feasibility of reintroduction. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Interventions required to assist natural recolonisation. Need to assess the feasibility of reintroduction. Stakeholder engagement & protection required to stop illegal raptor persecution. |
| Question 3: | At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages? |
| Response: | No |
| Justification: | Species of mountainous regions, and lowland areas elsewhere within its global range with low human population density (but avoids farmland areas) - some additional management could be beneficial but not currently limiting as lots of available unoccupied habitat |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 6. Recovery solutions trialled |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Low - Life history factor/s |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - sufficient |
| Species Comments: | No current breeding in England - but recolonisation / natural recovery expected if current interventions continue. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Support re-establishment of a regular English breeding population of Golden Eagles through natural spread from South Scotland, via targeted stakeholder engagement and potential population reinforcement, whilst completing wider recovery feasibility work (including a consideration of reintroduction potential and disturbance issues, etc).
Action targets: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: (Re-)introduction
Duration: 1 year
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 5 sites
High priority sites: Northumberland
Comments:
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Provide / enforce legal protection for Golden Eagles in England and support efforts to reduce levels of illegal killing, including stakeholder engagement, in Scotland and Ireland, the most likely source of recruits to an English population.
Action targets: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: Legal protection
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: National
High priority sites:
Comments: Priority one
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: Monitor the distribution of Golden Eagles that are present in England, including movements of birds into England from the South Scotland reinforcement project.
Action targets: 4. Autecology and pressures understood
Action type: Targeted monitoring
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 5 sites
High priority sites:
Comments:
Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.