Steller's Sea Eagle (Haliaeetus pelagicus) lives in coastal forests across Northeast Asia. It feeds on fish and squid. Its conservation status is Vulnerable.
Fascinating facts about the Steller's Sea Eagle
- Heavier than most eagles, a female can tip the scales at up to 9.5 kg while a male tops out near 6.8 kg, giving the species a typical weight range of 5-10 kg overall. Their wings stretch from 1.95 m to 2.50 m, with median spans around 2.13-2.20 m, and unverified reports even claim wings nearing 2.8 m.
- A true fish-hunter, the eagle can snatch salmon weighing 2.2 kg (pink) or 5 kg (chum) and even tackles prey as hefty as 6-7 kg. Up to 700 individuals may crowd a single spawning river, each grabbing two or three fish a day for their chicks. When salmon die after spawning, the eagles switch to the carrion, showing how their diet flexes with seasonal fish availability.
- Only about 4,000 eagles call the Kamchatka Peninsula home, and the entire species numbers roughly 5,000 worldwide, a figure that is shrinking. Because they occupy a narrow sub-arctic coastal niche, any loss of riverine forest or over-fishing of salmon hits them hard, pushing the International Union for Conservation of Nature to list the bird as Vulnerable.
- These eagles form lifelong pairs; monogamy is the rule, and each breeding season they lay 1-3 eggs, most often two. After a 38-day incubation, chicks fledge about 70 days later, staying with parents until late summer.
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.
At a glance
RangeNortheast Asia
HabitatCoastal forests
DietFish and squid
About the Steller's Sea Eagle
In the mist-shrouded skies of the Russian Far East, the Steller's Sea Eagle soars, a majestic sentinel of the coastal wilderness, its broad wings beating powerfully as it rides the thermals in search of its next meal. With eyes as piercing as the icy waters it calls home, this regal raptor scans the landscape below, its sharp gaze missing nothing as it patrols its kingdom with a slow, deliberate grace. As it banks and turns, its snowy crown and tail feathers glisten like freshly fallen snow, a fleeting glimpse of a creature that embodies the wild, unyielding spirit of the northern wilderness.
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