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Chick number 22 chirps in delight as a feeder thrusts a talon-shaped
puppet through a hole in a blind and offers it a full-grown mashed
quail complete with bones and feathers.
Still in its birthday suit of fluffy white down,
the 44-day-old Philippine eagle is already bigger than a rooster,
weighing 3.55 kilograms (7.8 pounds).
The Philippine eagle which once ruled the skies
over most of the Philippine islands is today close to extinction.
Chief breeder Domingo Tadena, 60, is hoping his
30 years of captive breeding here on the lower slopes of the
country’s tallest mountain will soon be crowned with the first
successful release of the king predator into the wild.
“We now have enough breeding stock,” he
tells AFP.
“The goal is to eventually release all birds
that are hatched here,” the breeder said as he hand-fed the chick,
the 22nd hatched at the Philippine Eagle Foundation.
Drawing on lessons learned from the condor and
harpy eagle conservation programs in the United States, the
foundation’s goal is to set free one captive-bred bird each year.
“In the next five years I am confident that we
can do this,” said Dennis Salvador, the foundation’s director.
A test release ended in tragedy in 2005 when a
two-year-old male named Kabayan was electrocuted on a power
transmission wire on Mount Apo’s foothills, just nine months after
being freed with radio and satellite tracking equipment.
Standing one meter (3.28 feet) tall with a
two-meter (6.56-feet) wingspan and weighing 7.5 kilograms (16.5
pounds), the eagle with the massive hooked beak is found only here
on Mindanao island.
It pairs for life and the female lays one egg
every two years. Each eagle needs 17 square kilometers (6.56 square
miles) of tropical rainforest to survive.
With old growth tropical rainforest being cut
down at the rate of 100 hectares a day, only about 500 breeding
pairs remain as prey and nesting sites vanish, and the bird itself
is pursued by trophy hunters.
Similar eagles are also found in far smaller
numbers in forests on Luzon, Samar and Leyte islands, though lack of
funds has meant little research has been done on their genetic
make-up.
Release one bird each year
Salvador says that because their prey is
different and the islands have been separated for eons, it is
possible that the Mindanao eagle is genetically distinct from the
eagles found on the three other major Philippine islands.
Launched in 1978, the center made a breakthrough
in 1992 with its first hatchling, a male called Pag-asa, which means
hope.
Having been raised for a life in captivity,
Pag-asa would not survive in the wild. Instead, he remains at the
foundation and is the main draw for the quarter of a million
visitors who come each year.
The process of getting captive-bred eagles to
pair, mate and lay an egg to supply the release program could take
up to four years, said Tadena, adding that sometimes the bigger
female ends up killing the smaller male.
Trained at the Peregrine Fund, a Boise,
Idaho-based center for birds of prey that is also a key benefactor
of the eagle foundation here, Tadena said the newer hatchlings are
now raised without human contact so they do not come to rely on
people for food.
They are put in large enclosures strategically
placed on mountain slopes, where trainers release rabbits to hone
the birds’ hunting skills and roll meat down chutes to supplement
their diet.
“Kabayan was already honing its hunting skills
and relying less on supplemental feeding,” Tadena said of the bird
that was electrocuted. “The bird would steal chicks from nests on
the hollows of trees and track ground mice and snakes.”
Salvador said the center is refining its eagle
release protocol, training the birds to avoid high-tension power
lines.
Preparing a captive-bred eagle for release costs
around $37,000, excluding the monitoring costs that require
satellite tracking equipment. Each bird must be monitored for at
least three years in the wild.
In its early years, the program was caught in
the crossfire of communist guerrillas and government forces, forcing
the breeding center to relocate.
“The rebels were angry because we fed the
eagles chickens. They told us, ‘Why do the animals get chicken
when Filipinos are dying of hunger?’” Tadena said.
The center also rescues stricken eagles in the
wild and since 1998, has saved 15 wounded birds. Thirteen survived
and three were eventually released back to the wild. One other bird
is due for release within two months after being nursed back to
health.
“A lot of our retrievals over the past 10
years involved birds with lead pellets in them,” said Salvador.
-- AFP
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