‘Riley’ is 31st PH eagle hatched in Davao facility
DAVAO CITY—The Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF), the country’s sole conservation group engaged in breeding the national bird, has announced the hatching of an eaglet at its National Bird Breeding Sanctuary (NBBS) here.
“Riley” is the 31st eaglet hatched in a facility run by PEF, which observed its 38th founding anniversary on Tuesday. It is the second produced in the NBBS, an eagle breeding center in Barangay Eden that is off-limits to visitors, unlike the one in Malagos District.
The first eaglet produced in NBBS was “Chick #30,” in November last year, but it lived for only 17 days.
Riley, adopted by Eagle Cement, is the offspring of female eagle “Dakila” and male eagle “Sinag” through artificial insemination.
Clear mission
Sinag’s semen was transported from the Philippine Eagle Center in Malagos to NBBS.
Riley was hatched on Jan. 16, and now weighs 1.5 kilograms.
“For nearly four decades, we have been driven by one clear mission, that is, to ensure the survival of the Philippine Eagle and its rainforest habitat,” said Dennis Salvador, PEF executive director.
“What this breeding season showed was that the eagles breed well with that kind of environment [in NBBS]. They’re more secured with very little, if not, no disturbance at all and they seem to thrive well in that place,” Salvador added.
He noted that the birds in NBBS produced four eggs during the last breeding season.
“It is unprecedented because when you usually move birds from one place to the other, they usually don’t respond well to the changes, actually don’t breed. But this time, within nine months, they bred and it’s a good sign we chose the site properly,” Salvador said.
Adding to the recent gains in eagle conservation is the report from PEF’s expedition teams in Luzon of the discovery of a nest in Nueva Ecija and sightings of eagles in Abra.
