Philippine Eagle returns to Leyte

News

ENVIRONMENT

29 June 2024

On Friday, 28 June 2024, two Philippines eagles were released by the Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF) at Brgy. Kagbana, Burauen, Leyte to fly free over the Anonang-Lobi mountain range. UP Tacloban College, represented by Professor Eulito V. Casas, Jr., Associate Professor Richard Parilla, and Assistant Professor Jay Torrefiel, witnessed the historic event.

The release of the eagles Uswag and Carlito is the first under PEF’s multi-year Conservation Translocation Program to re-establish the population of Philippine eagles on Leyte Island.

Seventeen years ago Dr. Casas led a Regional Philippine Eagle Watch Team (REWT) composed of experts from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in field validation studies of the presence of the Philippine eagle in the forests of Leyte. Prior to their study, the sightings reported in the literature were few and far between. There was a reported sighting in an unspecified locality in Southern Leyte in 1973 and then Dr. Robert S. Kennedy’s observation of a single bird perched along the Binahaan River in Jaro, Leyte in November 1980. In April 2007, the REWT led by Dr. Casas sighted a pair of soaring eagles over the mountains of Brgy. Kagbana, Burauen, Leyte. The sightings were reported on the front page of the Philippine Daily Inquirer on 22 July 2007.

Subsequent field validation surveys by the PEF yielded short sightings and voice call recordings. The last sighting of the Philippine eagles in the area was in March 2013. An intensive survey after supertyphoon Yolanda (Haiyan) in November 2013 yielded negative results.

The reintroduction of the Philippine eagle to the mountains of Leyte, which was coordinated by PEF Director of Operations Dr. Jayson Ibañez, included a comprehensive community education campaign in the surrounding barangays to safeguard the eagles. Uswag (male) and Carlito (female) were released in more or less the same area where the Philippine eagle was last seen 10 years ago. DENR officials, local and foreign benefactors of PEF’s Conservation Translocation Program, nongovernment organizations and environmental advocates, and the concerned local government units sent off the pair. The eagles can be tracked through lightweight GPS trackers installed on their backs.