Persecution removed the species from Britain entirely. Adults were killed as supposed lamb predators, nests were robbed for eggs and skins, and the last British breeding record dates to the early twentieth century, with an albino female on Shetland shot in 1918 usually cited as the last individual.
Reintroduction began in earnest in 1975, when young eagles taken from Norwegian nests were released on the Isle of Rum. Breeding resumed on Mull in the mid-1980s. Later releases in Wester Ross, eastern Scotland and, from 2019, the Isle of Wight extended the range, and the Scottish population has grown past a hundred and fifty pairs.
The old lamb-killing charge has been examined rather than assumed. Studies of eagle diet in Scotland find fish, seabirds and carrion dominating, with live lamb predation occurring but limited and difficult to separate from scavenging of animals that died of other causes.