bbc.co.uk navigation

Steller's sea eagle in flight

Steller's sea eagle

Steller’s sea eagles are native to eastern Russia, inhabiting coastal cliffs and estuaries where they can easily access good fishing territories. They feed primarily on salmon, which they catch by swooping from perches located by the water's edge. Pairs are monogamous and hatch an average of two chicks each season, although crows and martens commonly take both eggs and young birds from the nest. During winter a small number of birds remain in Russia to tough it out, but the majority fly south to Japan.

Scientific name: Haliaeetus pelagicus

Rank: Species

Watch video clips from past programmes (2 clips)

In order to see this content you need to have an up-to-date version of Flash installed and Javascript turned on.

Distribution

Map showing the distribution of the Steller's sea eagle taxa

Species range provided by WWF's Wildfinder.

The Steller's sea eagle can be found in a number of locations including: Asia, China, Russia. Find out more about these places and what else lives there.

Habitats

The following habitats are found across the Steller's sea eagle distribution range. Find out more about these environments, what it takes to live there and what else inhabits them.

Behaviours

Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.

Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web

Conservation Status

Vulnerable

  1. EX - Extinct
  2. EW
  3. CR - Threatened
  4. EN - Threatened
  5. VU - Threatened
  6. NT
  7. LC - Least concern

Population trend: Decreasing

Year assessed: 2008

Classified by: IUCN 3.1

About

The Steller's Sea Eagle, Haliaeetus pelagicus, is a large bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. It lives in coastal northeastern Asia and mainly preys on fish. On average, it is the heaviest eagle in the world, at about 5 to 9 kilograms (11 to 20 lb; 0.79 to 1.4 st), but may lag behind the Harpy Eagle (Harpia harpyja) and Philippine Eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi) in some standard measurements. This bird is named after the German naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller.

Read more at Wikipedia

This entry is from Wikipedia, the user-contributed encyclopedia. If you find the content in the 'About' section factually incorrect, defamatory or highly offensive you can edit this article at Wikipedia. For more information on our use of Wikipedia please read our FAQ.

BBC © 2013 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.