Spanish Imperial Eagle

Fascinating facts about the Spanish Imperial Eagle

• In the 1960s the Spanish imperial eagle was on the brink of disappearance, with only 30 breeding pairs left, all confined to Spain. After intensive conservation actions the species began to recover in the 1980s, adding about five new pairs each year until 1994. By 2011 the global count had risen to 324 pairs, 318 of them in Spain, and the Spanish population grew at roughly 7 % per year between 1990 and 2011.
• A defending adult once killed a cinereous vulture, the world's largest accipitrid, while protecting its nest. Spanish imperial eagles are apex predators and, although they rarely face natural predators, they sometimes kill each other in territorial fights and can even be fatal in inter-species clashes. They often quarrel with larger vultures over food, yet when free from human threats adult mortality can be as low as 3-5.4 % per year.
• Its nest can initially span up to 1.5 m across, built in mature cork-oak or pine trees, and it expands as the pair ages. The breeding pair selects dry, mature woodlands close to shrubby openings and wetlands, nesting from February to April. They lay two to three eggs, incubate them for about 43 days, and the chicks fledge after 63-77 days, though juveniles may remain nearby for up to 160 days.
• Before the outbreak of myxomatosis and rabbit haemorrhagic disease, European rabbits accounted for roughly 58 % of the Spanish imperial eagle's diet, showing a strong dependence on this single prey. When rabbit numbers collapsed, the eagles broadened their menu to include more than 60 bird species as well as mammals such as hares, rodents and even red foxes.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia

At a glance

About the Spanish Imperial Eagle

Against the backdrop of Iberia's cork oak forests and stone pine groves, the Spanish imperial eagle has rewritten its own extinction story. In the 1960s, with just 30 pairs surviving, its loss seemed inevitable; today over 800 pairs nest across the peninsula, a monument to what targeted conservation can achieve. Deeply tied to the Spanish landscape and its dwindling rabbit populations, it remains a bird whose future is never truly secure.

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