Overview
- A female Japanese golden eagle reared for release flew free on Thursday, June 18, when project staff opened the release door of a purpose‑built mountain hut at 9:15 a.m.
- The chick was transferred from Tama Zoological Park and raised in a secluded on‑site hut where caretakers fed it without showing themselves to prevent habituation to people and applied a yellow feather marker for visual ID.
- Project staff fitted the bird with a GPS transmitter and will monitor its location in real time while providing supplemental feeding if the bird needs support as it grows.
- The release is led by the South Sanriku Eagle Habitat Restoration Project Council, a public‑private partnership of local researchers, zoos and conservation groups that plans up to three staged releases through 2028 with a maximum of two birds per event and continued habitat restoration.
- The Japanese golden eagle is a nationally protected endangered species that vanished locally after habitat and prey loss, so the effort tests whether careful rearing plus landscape recovery can produce a self‑sustaining local population and bring local conservation and tourism benefits.