Card #048 · Birds
Steller's sea eagle
Haliaeetus pelagicus
Rare VU · Vulnerable
Field notes
- Classification
- Order Accipitriformes · Family Accipitridae
- Range
- Coastal Russian Far East, Japan, Korea
- Size
- 85–105 cm (33–41 in)
- Weight
- 5–9.5 kg (11–21 lb)
- Lifespan
- ~20+ yrs
- Diet
- Fish
Most Notable
The heaviest eagle alive: a female can top 9 kg and span nearly 2.5 m, and it wields the largest bill of any eagle, a great orange hook for tearing the salmon it snatches from the sea.
Each winter, as the northern seas freeze, thousands leave Russia for the ice edges and rivers of Hokkaido in Japan, where hundreds may gather at a single rich fishing spot. With only about 5,000 left in the world and the number falling, these crowds are a rare and fragile spectacle.
It takes mostly fish, especially salmon and trout, snatching them from the surface or robbing other eagles, and will also hunt seabirds and even young seals.
It breeds only along the coasts and rivers of the Russian Far East, building enormous stick nests in tall trees or on rock, and is one of the rarest of all the sea eagles.
Listed as Vulnerable, it is threatened by overfishing, coastal development, and lead poisoning from the ammunition left in carcasses it scavenges.
Range: Coasts of the Russian Far East; winters to Japan and Korea.