The Steller's sea eagle is named after Georg Steller, a German biologist who explored Kamchatka and Alaska in the 1700s. It is the largest of the sea eagles and is called the heaviest known eagle. It ranks with the harpy eagle and the Philippine eagle among the largest birds of prey. A female can weigh up to about 20 pounds (9 kilograms), and a male weighs less.

These eagles nest in eastern Russia, around the Sea of Okhotsk and on the Kamchatka Peninsula. They live near sea coasts and big rivers. In winter, many fly south to Japan. Not every one goes: some stay in Kamchatka for the winter and move to open water.

Hundreds of Steller's sea eagles gather at Kuril Lake in Kamchatka each winter to feed on salmon. The lake mostly stays free of ice in winter because of springs, wind and its closeness to the sea.

A Steller's sea eagle's big bill is described as hatchet-like, and it is suited to tough salmon skin. The eagle uses both eyes together, called binocular vision, to judge where its food is. It hunts from a perch or while flying, and it catches prey in its talons. Sometimes it stands in shallow water or on ice and grabs fish that swim by. It glides on rising warm air instead of flapping all the time.

Salmon is the main food, but these eagles also eat crabs, shellfish, small animals, gulls and carrion, which is an animal already dead. A Steller's sea eagle will sometimes steal food from other birds. Scientists know of no animal that preys on adult Steller's sea eagles.

Scientists know little about Steller's sea eagles because their homes in the Russian Far East are remote. No one knows for sure how long they live in the wild. As of November 2026, estimates put the world's Steller's sea eagles at around 5,000 birds, and several sources say the number is declining. The IUCN Red List lists the eagle as Vulnerable. Logging that harms their forest habitat is named as a threat. The eagles are protected by law in Russia, Japan, China and South Korea.

A pair often returns to the same nest each year and adds more branches to it. A nest can be 1.8 to 2.4 meters (6 to 8 feet) wide. A female lays one to three eggs in spring. The eggs take about 38 to 45 days to hatch, and a pair usually raises just one chick, even when more than one egg is laid.

A chick is covered in soft gray-white down that slowly changes to brown feathers. By the time it is five weeks old, it eats about one pound (0.4 kilograms) of fish a day. It learns to fly when it is about 10 weeks old, and it gets its full adult feathers at about four to five years old.

Words to know

• binocular: using both eyes
• carrion: dead animal
• habitat: a home place
• remote: far away
• declining: getting fewer