DAVAO CITY—In March last year, a group of three Manobo tribesmen on their way to gather rattan in the uplands of Lingig, Surigao del Sur province, heard the cries of a huge bird caught in a trap for monitor lizards.
The hunters however demanded a P5,000 ransom for the bird, which sent one of the tribesmen, Cabungso-an councilman Jerry Cotic, back to the village to raise the money. The bird, which was released to the wild eight months later, turned out to be a Philippine Eagle, the critically endangered national bird.
In August 2020, another raptor was sold off in Gigaquit town, Surigao del Norte province. Ryan Orquina bought it from wildlife traders for P8,000, and contacted the Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF) to take the bird to its conservation facility in Davao City.
Human persecution
These incidents are alarming, according to Dr. Jayson Ibañez, PEF’s director for research and conservation, as they reduce the national bird into items of trade. He noted that the pandemic-triggered economic hardship had driven people in communities near the forests to rely on timber poaching, wildlife hunting and slash-and-burn farming for survival, thus putting greater pressure on conservation work.
From March 2020 until March 2021, PEF had recorded and attended to 10 rescued eagles in Mindanao, of which five were returned to the wild. Seven of them had suffered human persecution: four were trapped, one hit by an improvised shotgun and two hunted down. Conservationists define human persecution as activities that threaten the species, such as shooting, hunting and deforestation. This prompted PEF during the pandemic to bolster its support for patrols by community volunteers to check on these unsustainable practices and protect the raptors.
In partnership with private and government agencies, PEF trained and provided support for at least 250 forest guards in communities hosting eagle nesting sites around Mt. Apo, and in the provinces of Bukidnon, Cotabato, Davao Oriental, Leyte and Southern Leyte.
In remote indigenous and local communities vulnerable to the impact of COVID-19, PEF provided emergency aid in exchange for their continued conservation work. In Arakan, Cotabato, 28 families got food packs for gathering and donating 14,000 seedlings of endemic trees, which were later planted in barren lands close to an eagle nesting site. Four women’s groups in various areas were also given small grants for emergency livelihood initiatives.
According to Ibañez, finding eagle pairs and protecting their families are integral to the raptor’s conservation.
In 2020, amid pandemic travel restrictions, PEF field researchers documented four eagle pairs, bringing to 42 the number of known raptor couples in Mindanao: 14 in Bukidnon, 11 in Davao Oriental, 10 around Mt. Apo and the rest in parts of the Caraga region, Sarangani, Misamis and Zamboanga provinces. There is also a known pair in Luzon and three pairs in Samar.
Financial challenges
PEF has mobilized volunteers to restore the forests in Davao City and Arakan, where raptors get shelter and food, and where they reproduce and nourish their offspring.
But the lockdowns have presented financial challenges to the foundation, as they crippled tourism in Davao City where PEF is both a conservation facility and an ecotourism site. Before the pandemic, some 200,000 tourists visit the center every year, with PEF earning from the entrance fee that has since been raised to P300 because of added tour activities.
At the height of the lockdowns, PEF lost P2 million in revenues.
According to PEF executive director Dennis Salvador, they currently operate on an annual budget of P30 million to P40 million, with the revenues from the center contributing a fourth of it, and the rest coming mainly from corporate and private grants and sponsorships.
Organized in 1987, PEF is “dedicated to saving the endangered Philippine Eagle and its rainforest habitat.” The raptor is among the rarest in the world as it can only be found in the islands of Luzon, Samar, Leyte and Mindanao. The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that there are only 400 pairs left in the wild.
In 1992, the Davao facility successfully hatched the captive-bred eaglets Pag-asa (Hope) and Pagkakaisa (Unity), a breakthrough in eagle conservation. In December last year, the 29th chick was hatched.
Salvador said the goal was to see more eagles reproduce and thrive in the wild, which means biological research should also be supported. INQ
