GAMEKEEPERS have clashed with a Green MSP after he implied they were responsible for the disappearance of a white-tailed sea eagle.

The bird, a female named Blue X, went missing last month in the vicinity of Aberfeldy, in an area close to several shooting estates.

She is the fourth satellite-tagged eagle to disappear from the region in recent years.

The RSPB said the circumstances were “highly suspicious”.

On Twitter, Mid-Scotland and Fife MSP Mark Ruskell said the evidence was mounting up when the number of birds killed and the locations of their deaths were considered.

The Scottish Gamekeepers Association were furious at the implication saying it was a wrong for the politician to suggest a “community of people are guilty of crime until proven innocent”.

Blue X is the third chick from her family to have vanished.

She was in the headlines last year after her polygamous father, Turquoise Z, raised chicks from two different nests some 30-miles apart.

The birds are huge. With a wingspan of 2.5m, the sea-eagle, sometimes nicknamed the ‘flying barn-door’, is Europe’s biggest bird of prey.

Just last month, the RSPB Highland and Islands shared a picture of one towering over a downed stag, chewing on the beast’s entrails.

The birds were wiped out in Scotland in the 19th century, with gamekeepers determined to stop the birds eating their money-making game birds.

Over the last 40 years, the birds have been reintroduced to Scotland, but Ruskell say he thinks some gamekeepers still maintain a “Victorian attitude” towards the eagles.

He’s called for a system of licensing for sporting estates. “Some disreputable estates and gamekeepers have a bizarre Victorian attitude that wildlife should be exterminated, despite wildlife tourism bringing millions into the Scottish economy,” he said.

“Driven grouse estates in particular are attempting to deliver unsustainable levels of grouse populations which lead them to cull mountain hares for example.

“It can’t go on. The Scottish Government is prevaricating over the setting up of a licensing scheme for driven grouse moor estates that would separate the good from the bad.

“Wildlife crime is notoriously difficult for the police to track down and there is a wall of silence in communities, no-one wants to call out the illegal actions.”

In a heated exchange on Twitter, the Green MSP pointed to a map showing the areas where the birds’ tags had stopped transmitting, and told the gamekeepers association that the “dots on the map are growing and it’s not because of wind farms”.

A spokesman for the Scottish Gamekeepers Association said: “Implying that a community of people are guilty of crime until proven innocent is a debatable line for a senior politician to take, especially as he also holds a position on a Parliamentary committee looking at these issues.

“At the very least, therefore, he should go to meet the people he has insinuated to be criminals and tell them face to face why he thinks that way. We are sure they would appreciate that accountability.”

“The blanket criminalising of a community of people, without proper evidence, is unacceptable and it is disconcerting that this appears to be becoming acceptable currency in our Parliament.”

Yesterday, the government announced new methods make it possible to retrieve human DNA found on carcasses at crime scenes, as well as at traps and bait left for birds of prey, even after they’ve been outside.