Kenneth Steven considers the introduction of wild animals back into the Highlands of Scotland and the impact on rural life, reflecting in poetry at the end of each Essay.

At one time sea eagles are likely to have been revered in Scotland. The Tomb of the Eagles, a Neolithic burial site in Orkney, is testament to that, as are the carved Pictish stones depicting what’s hard not to believe have to be sea eagles. For all that, they most certainly became a hated species in more recent centuries, after the Clearances in the Highlands when the era of the Victorian hunting estate had been ushered in.

When they were reintroduced, Rum was the location chosen by the then Nature Conservancy Council for the release of the first sea eagles in 1975. It’s somehow an island made for eagles, and set in a wider wildscape designed for them every bit as much. Across the water from Scotland, Norway had and has a very healthy population of the birds. So it was eaglets were collected at 6-8 weeks of age from nests in Norway: over the next 10 years a total of 82 eaglets (39 males and 43 females) were brought to Scotland.

Presenter Kenneth Steven

Producer Mark Rickards

A Whistledown Scotland Production for BBC Radio 3