Persecution removed the species from Britain entirely. Adults were killed as supposed lamb predators and nests were robbed for eggs and skins. The last known British breeding attempt was on the Isle of Skye in 1916, and a pale, cream-coloured female shot on Shetland in 1918 is 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 now stands at roughly 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.