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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jurek" data-source="post: 1709033" data-attributes="member: 3357">Well, Defra or not, Eagle Owl is protected under the current European law, escape or not.Many Eagle Owls WERE recorded in Britain, from early historic accounts to recent sightings, but they are not on the list because natural vagrants and escaped birds were unrecognizable. Which is a very different situation from "not occuring in Britain". Now, with isotope analysis, there is a way.Note also that historically, EO population in the whole NW Europe was hunted close to extinction. Which by itself is artifical man-made factor and prevented recent vagrants/colonization/recolonization to Britain. Now the population is visibly increasing, and ringed juveniles disperse for several 100. km. So the wild records are not unexpected. I wish that effort put into tracing EO origin in Britain was put into disproving a rather persistent tale that they might be a threat to any British species. Although EO eat individual birds, they are not a threat to any bird or mammal on the population level in the Continental Europe.</blockquote>