What Do Wedge-Tailed Eagles Eat? A Look at Their Diet

Wedge-tailed eagles eat an enormous range of prey, from rabbits and kangaroos to parrots, ducks, reptiles, and even feral cats and foxes. Their diet shifts dramatically depending on where they live and what is available, which makes a single menu impossible to pin down. What holds true across the continent is that these birds are both active hunters and enthusiastic scavengers, and their flexibility is a big part of why they remain widespread across Australia.

How Diet Changes Across Regions

A detailed study of wedge-tailed eagle diets across Western Australia found striking variation from one landscape to the next. On the dry Nullarbor Plain, rabbits dominated the diet despite plenty of other species being around. In the wetter southwest, the menu was far more diverse: ducks, parrots, corvids (crows and ravens), rabbits, and sheep all turned up regularly. Along the arid western coast near Carnarvon, kangaroos and sheep made up the bulk of the food, but foxes and cats also featured. And in the tropical north, macropods (kangaroos and wallabies) appeared to be the primary food source.¹

That variability tells you something fundamental about how these eagles operate. They are not locked into one food source the way some specialist predators are. In lush, biodiverse areas they exploit a wider buffet, while in harsher country they zero in on whatever is most abundant. The pattern holds regardless of whether the most common prey item is native or introduced. In places where rabbits or livestock are the easiest meal, those dominate the diet. Where native marsupials and reptiles are plentiful, the eagles focus there instead.

Rabbits and the Myth of Dependence

Because rabbits show up so prominently in eagle diet studies, some ecologists once argued that wedge-tailed eagle populations were tightly linked to rabbit abundance. That concern became urgent in the late 1990s when rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV) swept through Australia as a biocontrol agent, crashing rabbit numbers by up to 90 percent in some regions. If eagles truly depended on rabbits, the virus could have been a disaster for them too.

It was not. Eagle numbers held steady even in areas where rabbits were nearly wiped out. Researchers found that as rabbits declined, eagles simply ate more kangaroos, reptiles, and birds. Part of the reason is that rabbit populations themselves suppress native prey by degrading the habitat those species need. When rabbits disappear, native animals bounce back, and the eagles have something else to eat. Breeding success, measured by clutch size, showed minimal change through the upheaval.²

The takeaway is that rabbits dominate eagle diets largely in areas where human land use or rabbit-driven habitat damage has already hollowed out the native prey base. In intact ecosystems, eagles are generalists with a wide diet. The high proportion of rabbits in some studies reflects degraded landscapes more than a genuine dietary preference.

Kangaroos and Large Prey

Kangaroos and wallabies are among the largest animals wedge-tailed eagles regularly eat, and in many regions they form the backbone of the diet. Eagles take joeys and smaller species by hunting, but adults of the larger kangaroo species are more often consumed as carrion. Roadkill, drought deaths, and animals shot by landholders all provide carcasses that eagles locate from the air.

A study that monitored 120 kangaroo carcasses with camera traps across desert, forest, and alpine environments found that wedge-tailed eagles discovered carcasses in open habitats roughly 2.7 times faster than in closed, forested habitats. They also found carcasses about 5.3 times faster during cool seasons compared with warm seasons. Scavenging was most frequent in the desert and in open landscapes generally.³

The seasonal pattern probably reflects a combination of factors. In cooler weather, carcasses decompose more slowly, giving eagles more time to find them. Thermal updrafts that eagles use for soaring can also differ between seasons and habitats, affecting how much ground they cover while scanning. The open-habitat advantage is more straightforward: eagles hunt and scavenge primarily by sight, and a carcass lying in grassland or scrubland is simply easier to spot than one beneath a forest canopy.

Birds, Reptiles, and Other Prey

The mammal-heavy diet gets most of the attention, but wedge-tailed eagles eat a surprising number of birds and reptiles too. In the southwest of Western Australia, birds ranked alongside rabbits and sheep as the most common prey, with ducks, parrots, and corvids all appearing frequently.¹ Across the drier interior, large lizards like monitors (goannas) and bearded dragons show up in nest remains and pellet analyses. Snakes appear occasionally as well, though they are a less common find than lizards.

Among bird prey, the eagles are not particularly fussy. Galah and cockatoo feathers turn up around nests, and in pastoral areas, flocks of corellas or galahs feeding on the ground present easy targets for a stooping eagle. Waterfowl are taken at dams and wetlands, and young emus are reported from time to time in northern and inland areas. The overall picture is an eagle that will attack almost anything within its size range and, occasionally, things well beyond it. Pairs cooperate when tackling larger prey, with one bird distracting the animal while the other strikes.

Livestock and the Long History of Persecution

Wedge-tailed eagles have been vilified by Australian graziers for more than a century. Sheep, lambs, and young goats turn up in diet studies regularly, and bounty programs in the mid-twentieth century led to mass killings. At one point, hundreds of thousands of eagles were shot, trapped, or poisoned in an effort to protect livestock. The species was not legally protected across all of Australia until relatively recently, and illegal killing still occurs.

The reality of eagle predation on livestock is more nuanced than the reputation suggests. Eagles certainly take live lambs, especially newborns that are weak or unattended. But much of the “sheep” that appears in their diet is carrion. Pastoral country is littered with carcasses from natural causes, and an eagle feeding on a dead lamb looks exactly like an eagle that killed one. Studies that distinguish between predation and scavenging consistently find that carrion accounts for a large share of the livestock in eagle diets. This does not eliminate the conflict entirely, because some eagles do learn to hunt lambs, and individual problem birds can cause genuine economic damage. But the blanket assumption that every eagle near a lambing paddock is a killer oversimplifies a more complicated relationship.

Foxes and feral cats also turn up in eagle diets, particularly along the arid western coast.¹ From a conservation standpoint, this is an underappreciated service. Foxes and cats are among the most destructive invasive predators in Australia, responsible for driving dozens of small mammal species toward extinction. The degree to which eagle predation actually suppresses fox and cat populations is uncertain, but it is at least a contributing pressure.

Built for Grabbing Heavy Prey on the Ground

The wedge-tailed eagle’s body is well suited to its diet of large, ground-dwelling animals. A comparative study of raptor hindlimb anatomy found that wedge-tailed eagles have relatively short, robust leg bones and digits compared to many other birds of prey, a design common in large raptors that catch heavy prey. The structure provides the strength needed to subdue struggling animals and cushions the impact of striking the ground at speed. Their talons are proportionally large relative to toe length, especially on the first and second digits, which are the primary gripping tools when seizing prey.⁴

This matters because wedge-tailed eagles do most of their hunting and scavenging on or near the ground. They are not plucking fish from the water like a sea eagle or snatching songbirds in flight. Their typical hunting style involves soaring at height, spotting prey, and making a steep dive or low glide to strike. The powerful feet lock onto the animal, and the eagle may ride the prey to the ground rather than carrying it away. For smaller prey like rabbits, the impact alone can be lethal. For larger animals, the talons do the killing work while the eagle’s weight pins the prey down.

Scavenging and Its Hidden Cost

Wedge-tailed eagles are among Australia’s most important vertebrate scavengers. They are often the first large scavenger to arrive at a carcass in open country, and groups of up to a dozen or more birds can gather at a single large carcass, such as a dead cow or kangaroo. This scavenging habit is ecologically valuable because it speeds up the breakdown of carcasses in pastoral landscapes, reducing fly breeding sites and disease risk. But it also exposes the eagles to a hazard they cannot detect: lead.

When hunters shoot kangaroos, feral goats, or other animals with lead-based ammunition and leave the carcasses or gut piles in the field, tiny fragments of lead spread through the tissue. An eagle feeding on that carcass ingests lead along with the meat. Research on the endangered Tasmanian subspecies found that roughly three-quarters of liver samples with elevated lead had isotope ratios matching the range of commercially available lead-based bullets in Tasmania. Even nestlings showed lead exposure, with over 90 percent of blood samples that contained detectable lead matching ammunition isotope signatures.⁵

On the mainland, the picture is similar. A study that measured lead in bone samples from 62 eagle carcasses collected between 1996 and 2022 found detectable lead in 84 percent of them. About 13 percent had elevated concentrations and roughly 5 percent had severe levels. The mainland figures were moderately higher than comparable Tasmanian data and on par with threatened eagle species studied on other continents.⁶ Isotope analysis in a related preliminary study pointed to ammunition as the likely source for elevated lead levels, though other sources cannot be ruled out entirely.⁷

Lead exposure at these levels can cause neurological damage, reproductive failure, and weakened immune function in individual birds. Whether it affects the mainland population as a whole is still being investigated, but the Tasmanian subspecies is already listed as endangered with a small population, making any additional mortality pressure a serious concern. The most straightforward solution is a switch to non-lead ammunition for culling operations, a change that has been adopted in some jurisdictions for waterfowl hunting but is far from universal for the terrestrial shooting that generates most of the risk to eagles.

How Young Eagles Learn to Feed

Wedge-tailed eagles typically raise one or two chicks per nest, with the older sibling sometimes killing the younger in what biologists call siblicide, particularly when food is scarce. The surviving chick stays in or near the nest for about three months before fledging, and it remains dependent on its parents for food for several more months after that. During this extended learning period, the young bird accompanies its parents on foraging trips and gradually develops its own hunting skills.

Juveniles tend to scavenge more than adults, partly because scavenging is easier and partly because they lack the experience to hunt effectively. Roadkill is an important food source for young eagles in their first year of independence, which unfortunately also makes them vulnerable to vehicle strikes. Many of the wedge-tailed eagle carcasses that end up in wildlife rehabilitation centers or research collections are juveniles found along highways. As they mature and become more proficient hunters, eagles shift toward a more balanced mix of hunting and scavenging, though carrion remains a significant part of the diet throughout their lives.

Seasonal Shifts in What Gets Eaten

Diet composition does not stay fixed through the year. During the breeding season, which typically runs from about July to December depending on latitude, pairs need more food to support growing chicks. This is when active hunting intensifies and higher-energy prey like rabbits and young macropods becomes especially important. Outside the breeding season, eagles are more likely to rely on scavenging and on smaller, lower-energy prey items like lizards and small birds.

Seasonal availability of prey also drives shifts. Reptiles are far more active and visible in warm months, making them easier to catch. Conversely, the cool-season scavenging advantage documented in the carcass study mentioned earlier means that carrion becomes a bigger part of the diet in winter.³ In drought years, the dynamic changes again. Mass die-offs of kangaroos and livestock produce a glut of carrion, and eagles congregate in numbers that can seem alarming to landholders but simply reflect the birds’ opportunism.

The flexibility to toggle between hunting and scavenging, and between mammal, bird, and reptile prey, is ultimately what makes wedge-tailed eagles so resilient. It allowed them to absorb the shock of rabbit declines, sustains them across habitats ranging from alpine forest to outback desert, and gives them a dietary insurance policy that few other Australian predators can match.