Steinadler Upper Austria

Across the DACH region the golden eagle is almost entirely tied to the Alps, where it inhabits open and semi-open high-mountain landscapes. Its hunting grounds lie preferentially above the tree line, with a shift to lower elevations in winter. A key trait is the very large home range: a breeding pair holds an area of roughly 35 to 100 square kilometres depending on habitat productivity and neighbour density, and often considerably more in less productive high country. Nest sites are typically rock walls, occasionally also old trees, and each pair maintains several alternate eyries within its territory.

Golden eagles form lifelong pair bonds and begin breeding as early as late winter. The female usually lays two eggs, which are incubated for about 43 to 45 days. Often only one chick survives, because the older eaglet frequently outcompetes its weaker sibling, a behaviour known as Cainism. Overall breeding success is low, the rearing period stretches into late summer, and the birds are especially sensitive to disturbance during this time. The diet consists mainly of medium-sized mammals such as marmots, young chamois, hares and foxes, as well as grouse, supplemented year-round by carrion, particularly fallen game in winter.

The population trajectory in the DACH region is one of the great success stories of raptor conservation. By the late nineteenth century the golden eagle had been wiped out in the lowlands and in the German low mountain ranges through persecution as a supposed competitor for game and livestock, and the Alpine populations had reached their lowest point. In Bavaria, the golden eagle was placed under a year-round closed season as early as 1925. After legal protection and a shift in public attitude, the populations have recovered: roughly 1,100 to 1,200 pairs now breed across the entire Alpine arc, around 350 in Switzerland and some 45 to 50 territorial pairs in the Bavarian Alps, while Austria holds birds throughout almost the whole of its Alpine range.

For hunters, the golden eagle is not quarry but a strictly protected fellow inhabitant of the ground. The stewardship duty in the Federal Hunting Act, the Bundesjagdgesetz, places the responsibility on hunters to know eyrie locations, treat them confidentially and avoid any disturbance during the breeding season. Correct identification matters: young golden eagles are occasionally confused with common buzzards, white-tailed eagles or red kites. A special role is played by falconry, which was inscribed in 2015 on the German national list and in 2010 on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Hunting with a golden eagle is only permitted with a valid hunting licence plus a separate falconer's licence and only with birds that are documented as captive-bred. Taking eagles from the wild is forbidden.