EAGLE IN A TRAP

Taranaki Daily News, 5 January 1935, Page 13 (Supplement)

EAGLE IN A TRAP

EXHAUSTED AFTER ITS FLIGHT. WING SPREAD OF SEVEN FEET. A golden eagle with a steel trap attached, to a leg was found exhausted on Knockfarril, a conical hill, near Strathpeffer Spa, Ross and Cromarty, recently. It was found by a man walking across the hill. He beat it with a stick, but, before he overcame it, his hands were lacerated''and his clothes torn. The eagle is an excellent specimen, its wing spread measuring 7ft. Presumably, it had flown many miles with the trap attached, from some deer forest or high grouse moor in the west of Ross-shire, where the gclden eagle, though rare, may still be seen. The steel trap which claimed one of the few remaining British eagles, says the Morning Post, was no doubt set for ground vermin; but the gins placed for rabbits, rats or stoats not uncommonly victimise birds, both large and small. Because of the prolonged and violent suffering the steel trap enforces, there has been an agitation in recent years to render its use 'llegal and a bill to that end is being promoted by Lord Tredegar.