One of the first white-tailed eagles to fledge in England for hundreds of years has vanished in suspicious circumstances, alongside two more “devastating” disappearances of the reintroduced raptor.

The eagles have gone missing in Sussex, Wales and Scotland. The chick, which hatched in the wild earlier this year in Sussex, was one of the first white-tailed eagles to fledge in England for hundreds of years.

It is thought someone could have harmed or killed the birds, as the satellite trackers that allow the reintroduction team to track their location and movements had been cut off. Two of the eagles had their trackers cut off with a sharp instrument with the equipment found dumped near their last recorded location. In the third case, the tag stopped sending information on 8 November and no sighting of the bird has been recorded since.

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