PROTECTING EAGLES | Linemen of the Cotabato Electric Cooperative install on March 24 the insulated wire at the electric post where an eaglet was electrocuted in 2018. (Photo courtesy of the Philippine Eagle Foundation)
DAVAO CITY, Davao del Sur, Philippines — Five years after the second Philippine eagle was reported to have died from having tripped on a live wire, the country’s first retrofitted power line system has been installed on Mt. Sinaka in Arakan town of Cotabato province to protect Philippine eagles from similar accidents, an executive of the Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF) said.
Jayson Ibañez, PEF director of research and conservation, said the project undertaken by the Cotabato Electric Cooperative (Cotelco) with funding support from a Japanese company, hopes to popularize the use of insulated wires for power lines installed close to or within Philippine eagle habitats nationwide.
Mt. Sinaka, which forms part of the Mt. Apo mountain range that straddles the provinces of Cotabato and Davao del Sur, is considered the smallest Philippine eagle nesting habitat in the world, with only less than 2,000 hectares of forest cover, according to PEF.
Since 1995, PEF has been working with the local government and communities in the area to conserve a pair of Philippine eagles, a species declared “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
“Since our team validated a Philippine eagle family on Mt. Sinaka, we helped surrounding communities become responsible neighbors to the eagle,” said Dennis Salvador, PEF executive director.
“We’re very proud of these local partnerships. Through the communities’ careful watch across the years, at least 11 young eagles were hatched successfully at Mt. Sinaka,” he added.
But in 2018, a tragedy happened. Only 10 days before Christmas Eve, a farmer found the lifeless body of a young Philippine eagle by the roadside. The bird apparently came in contact with two naked electric wires simultaneously, and the full voltage passing through its body caused its death, according to PEF.
Accidental electrocution
The eaglet was the second eagle death from accidental electrocution after a captive-bred bird named Kabayan, released on Mt. Apo in 2004, also died of similar accident years after its release.
“The survival of each individual [eagle] to sexual maturity is very critical for an IUCN-declared critically endangered species like the Philippine eagle,” said Salvador.
“We hope that through this pioneering project and by way of Cotelco’s example, we can encourage all electric companies operating in Philippine eagle forest habitats across the country to do the same,” he added.
According to PEF, highly industrialized countries like Japan, the United States, and those in Europe that used to have grave issues with large eagles dying of electric shock for decades had developed safe wire insulation methods to avoid its impacts.
“With the push for more electrification and urbanization projects close to formerly remote forests and eagle habitats, measures should be carried out to prevent eagle and wildlife deaths from non-insulated power lines,” said Ibañez in a statement.
‘Bird jewel’
In 2021, the Arakan municipal council passed an ordinance declaring the Philippine eagles as the town’s flagship species, the “bird jewel” of Arakan town, and imposed penalties for those who will harm the bird.
The ordinance is a landmark policy that sets the stage for more measures to secure at least two Philippine eagle families found in Arakan town. The measures included piloting a power line retrofitting project to protect the eagles.
A year after Cotelco expressed interest in modifying its power lines on Mt. Sinaka, experts from the Asian Raptor Research and Conservation Network (ARRCN) of Japan came to Mt. Sinaka to provide advice on the power line retrofitting project.
Dr. Toru Yamazaki, ARRCN president, also helped link PEF with the Suntory, a Japanese wine and beverage corporation that managed the Suntory Fund for Bird Conservation. In 2022, Suntory Fund approved the grant for PEF for the purchase and installation of the first 1.5 kilometers of insulated wire at Barangay Tumanding, one of the barangays surrounding Mt. Sinaka.
Cotelco launched the installation work of the first 1.5 km of a 4.5-km retrofitted power line system on March 24 in a simple ceremony at Sitio Bagtok in Barangay Tumanding.
Karol Mei Colambot, head of Cotelco promotions, said the installation would be completed before June this year, in time for the town-wide celebration of the Philippine Eagle Day in homage to the Arakan’s bird jewel.
This developed as the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources committed to reviving its proposal to declare Mt. Sinaka as a national protected area by designating it as a “critical habitat.”