The return of white-tailed eagles to Scottish skies has raised the usual conservation conflicts.
Is this email difficult to read? View in your web browser. > ([link removed])
News of the world environment
NEWSLETTER | AUGUST 29, 2025
([link removed])
([link removed])
([link removed])
Rewilding Woes
WEST SCOTLAND’S GLACIAL LANDSCAPE stretches out as far as the eye can see. Traveling further north, crossing glens and sea lochs, the balmy air hangs heavy with the distant cry of gulls and the smell of salt. As we stop to unpack our lunch, a large shadow passes over a U-shaped valley, its enormous wingspan carrying it towards the Isle of Mull. This formidable shadow is the white-tailed eagle, commonly known as the sea eagle, the United Kingdom’s largest raptor. These days, they have become a symbolic icon, representing the fears, frustrations and devotion of many who live here.
For some, the presence of this bird is a conservation success. For others, it embodies a lack of external support and isolation from the capital. This mixed reaction is a byproduct of differing connections to the land that have shaped the Highlands for generations and how its stakeholders choose to defend it.
Nearly 50 years after their reintroduction to Scotland, white-tailed eagles have continually sparked complex discussions on the interplay between human activity and wildlife restoration.
Researcher and photojournalist Mirali Shukla talks with conservationists and farmers about the return of these once-endangered eagles to the Scottish skies and finds they have more common ground than widely thought.
READ MORE ([link removed])
Photo by Mirali Shukla
Let’s grow the movement! Share this email with an environmentally-conscious friend or colleague (or copy this easy signup link ([link removed])).
SUGGESTED BROWSING ()
Perked Up on Prozac ([link removed])
“It was a late night alone in the lab for Peter Fong of Gettysburg College when he accidentally knocked a bottle of Prozac into an aquarium of clams. As the pills sunk to the bottom of the tank, along with his heart, he noticed something strange.” (Undark ([link removed]))
Corrective Lens ([link removed])
After AI failed to generate an image of a Black surfer, David Mesfin set out to change how technology sees people of color in the outdoors. (Outside ([link removed]))
Killing Rats ([link removed])
Louisiana’s great deterioration began with the decision to confine the Mississippi River between levees, followed by more than 50,000 oil wells and thousands of miles of canals and pipelines. It continues with the nutria. “A citizen is not permitted, in the current legal climate, to explode federal levees and dams, or to hunt oil and gas executives. So the nutria must pay.” (Harper’s ([link removed]))
A Shared Fate ([link removed])
In Vermont, researchers have investigated the types of creepy, crawly bugs that their avian predators consume and may have found the answers to keeping them both alive. (Smithsonian Magazine ([link removed]) )
Did a thoughtful friend forward you our newsletter?
What a great friend! Sign up here. ([link removed])
([link removed])
Follow ([link removed])
([link removed])
Follow ([link removed])
([link removed])
Subscribe ([link removed])
Thanks for supporting Earth Island Journal, the independent media arm of the nonprofit Earth Island Institute. Reader donations to our Green Journalism Fund ([link removed]) help to cover the costs of our in-depth investigative reporting on environmental issues.
([link removed])
You are receiving this email newsletter because you signed up on our website.
No longer want to receive these emails? Update your preferences ([link removed]).
Make sure we land in your primary inbox: Add Earth Island Journal to your address book.
Our mailing address is:
Earth Island Journal
2150 Allston Way Ste 460
Berkeley, CA 94704-1375
Copyright © 2025 Earth Island Journal, All rights reserved.
