By Henrylito D. Tacio
Visitors, both foreigners and locals, who come to this city for the first time are almost always attracted to the Philippine Eagle Center in Malagos, Calinan. Some 30 kilometers northwest and about an hour’s ride from downtown Davao, the center is the transient home of the endangered Philippine eagle (‘Pithecophaga jefferyi’). Here, a dozen male and female eagles are being induced to breed in captivity.
“When you protect the eagle, you’re also protecting the environment,” said Dr. James Grier, the American wildlife scientist who helped hatched Pag-asa (which means “hope” in the country’s national dialect), the first captive bred eagle in the country.
“Pag-asa connotes hope for the continued survival of the Philippine eagle, hope that if people get together for the cause of the Philippine eagle, it shall not be doomed to die,” said Dennis Salvador, executive director of the Philippine Eagle Foundation, Inc.
“By using the Philippine eagle as the focal point of our conservation, we are, in the process, saving wildlife and their habitat,” he said, adding that the foundation is committed to promote the survival of the Philippine eagle, “the biodiversity it represents, and the sustainable use of our forest resources for future generations to enjoy.”
In 1995, then President Fidel Ramos declared the Philippine eagle as the country’s national bird.
“This species is considered one of the largest and most powerful eagles in the world,” said the PEFI in a statement. “Unfortunately, it is also one of the world’s rarest and certainly among its most critically endangered vertebrate species.”
In fact, the Philippine eagle is on the watchlist of the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) treaty, which regulates and prohibits the commercial import of wild animal and plant species deemed threatened by trade. Currently, only 1,500 pairs of Philippine eagles are estimated to exist.
The Philippine eagle is one of the world's largest and most powerful eagles. An English naturalist, Dr. John Whitehead, first reported this splendid raptor in 1896 on the island of Samar. The Philippine eagle stands a meter high, weighs anything from four to seven kilograms and has a grip three times the strength of the strongest man on earth. With a wingspan of nearly seven feet and a top speed of 80 kilometers per hour, it can gracefully swoop down on an unsuspecting monkey and carry it off without breaking flight.
Formerly known as monkey-eating eagle, the name was changed to Philippine eagle by a Presidential Decree No. 1732 in 1978 after it was learned that monkeys comprise an insignificant portion of its diet, which consists mainly of flying lemurs, squirrels, snakes, civets, hornbills, rodents, and bats.
The Philippine eagle is endemic to the country.
Geographically, it is restricted to the islands of Luzon, Samar, Leyte, and Mindanao. These islands were once connected to each other during the mid-Pleistocene when the sea level was lower by 120 to 160 meters than at present. Recent biogeographical analysis suggests that the origin of the giant raptor is clearly Papuasian. Its closest relative is believed to be the New Guinea harpy eagle. The ancestors of Philippine eagle probably arrived through the southeast part of Mindanao prior to the mid-Pleistocene.
Unknowingly, Philippine eagle is on the brink of extinction. Hunting has been cited as one of the reasons why the numbers of Philippine eagles are diminishing. It was being collected in the country as early as 1703.
However, the destruction of their natural habitat is the primary culprit of their rapid disappearance. The Philippine eagle is primarily a rainforest raptor.
Its natural habitat is mainly old-growth forests from 100 to 1,000 meters in elevation. Unfortunately, most of these are fast disappearing due to deforestation.
“Deforestation is terrible,” Salvador deplored. “The Philippine eagle has become a critically endangered species because the loss of the forest has made it lose its natural habitat.”
Records from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) show that in the 1950s, three-fourths of the country was covered with forests. In 1972, the figure had shrunk to half, and by 1988 only one quarter of the country's total land area was wooded - and less than a million hectares was considered virgin forest.
Today, the country is losing 119,000 hectares of its forest cover, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an international group of environmentalists.
By the year 2014, there might be no more forest to speak of unless the situation is reversed.
In a statement, Salvador suggested: “Small patches of forest may not be able to sustain the needs of the Filipino people and Philippine wildlife in the long run. What we need to do is to protect the large, contiguous forests and expand the smaller patches by rehabilitating the surrounding areas and developing forest corridors.”
Efforts to save the Philippine eagle was started in
1965 by Jesus Alvarez, then director of the autonomous Parks and Wildlife Office, and Dioscoro Rabor, another founding father of Philippine conservation efforts.
Rabor fought for the recognition of the plight of the Philippine eagle at the world conference of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) in Bangkok, Thailand. He succeeded when the IUCN – of which the Philippines is a signatory – was declared the Philippine eagle an endangered species.
From 1969 to 1972, General Charles Lindbergh spearheaded a drive to save the bird. Within this time frame, several helpful laws were passed. These include the Administrative Order No. 235 of August 25, 1970, which prohibited acts that disturbed or harmed the eagle; the Republic Act No. 6147 of November 9, 1970, and its sequel, the Wildlife General Administrative Order No. 1 (Series of 1971), which protected the eagle and provided for nest-site sanctuaries.
If the Philippine eagle could only speak, these words would be what the bird say, according to the Forest Management Bureau: “I have watched forests disappear, rivers dry up, floods ravage the soil, droughts spawn uncontrolled fires, hundreds of my forest friends vanish forever and men leave the land because it was no longer productive. I am witness to the earth becoming arid. I know all life will eventually suffer and die if this onslaught continues. I am a storyteller, and I want you to listen before it’s too late.”