DAVAO CITY—The Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF) announced another successful breeding in captivity of a Philippine eagle—the 28th since the conservation program was started in 1969.
The still unnamed eaglet was hatched with minimal assistance on November 4, after 56 days of incubation. It was 5 inches tall and weighed 488.3 grams.
The new eaglet was the third successfully hatched offspring from the Philippine Eagle pair, “MVP” (male) and “Go Phoenix” (female). The pair produced earlier the eaglet “Sinag” and “Chick 27”.
Eagles MVP and Go Phoenix were the adopted eagles of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. and Edisy Trading, respectively.
“The chick showed no signs of deformities. It is active and, in fact, has a big appetite,” PEF Animal keeper Colin Santander said.
“It is just three weeks old but its growth is exceptional,” Santander added. The PEF said the birth of Chick 28 highlights the continuing success of what was once thought as a lost cause.”
“In the midst of continued mortality and persecution in the wild, this hatching success underscores the importance of conservation breeding as a way of securing this species’s gene pool,” PEF Executive Director Dennis Salvador said.
Theresa Mundita Lim, chief of the Biodiversity Management Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, said she was glad about the hatching and extended her congratulations to the PEF for Chick 28.
The PEF said it would “continue to serve its mission in saving the great Philippine Eagle from extinction.”
“The PEF firmly believes that, with concerted effort, the critically endangered Philippine Eagle will someday fly freely in the wild,” the center said.
The new hatching success may help boost anew the morale of the breeders for their attempt to send the birds to the wild, after the PEF was informed of the shooting to death of eagle “Pamana” by a local hunter in August last year.
What made it worse was that the incident happened inside Mount Hamiguitan in Davao Oriental, which only that year was granted the status as one of the world’s heritage sites under the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco).
The shooter remained scot-free, despite the bounty put up by government offices, which were apparently pressured by the international community on complying with their commitment to the Unesco. Even the Philippine Eagle Conservation officials turned to the crowdfunding web site Indiegogo to raise funds, which reached $10,000.
Pamana’s death notwithstanding, the conservation program remained esteemed in the global conservation community for its continued successes in breeding the critically endangered eagle.
After several misses, the center eventually came out with “Pagasa,” the first to be bred in 1992.
Another notable success was the PEF’s success in April 2012 in hatching the country’s first Pinsker’s hawk eagle in captivity. The Pinsker’s hawk eagle (Nisaetus pinskeri), also endemic to Philippine forests, was hatched in captivity after camp biologists incubated the egg for 48 days.
“The chick is the first bred and hatched in captivity. The chick came from a natural pair, and weighed a mere 57.2 grams when it hatched,” a PEF statement said, after the Pinsker’s hawk eagle came out of its shell.
The Pinsker’s hawk eagle is one of the few species of birds of prey in the Acciptridae family.
“It is considered threatened because of the loss of its natural habitat, the subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest,” the PEF added.
“The PEF’s conservation breeding program has gained significant advancement that will make it possible for us to augment the eagle population. The real challenge, however, is the Pinsker’s hawk eagle’s survival in the wild,” Salvador said.
He said the “fast diminishing forests and destruction of their habitats are still the biggest threats to the survival of the eagles. We need everyone’s contribution to ensure that the eagle population will increase, especially in the wild,” he said.
Image credits: Philippine Eagle Foundation