Cargo ship turns over young eagle to DENR

A young osprey was turned over by the captain of a container ship bound for Taiwan to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in Central Visayas (DENR-7), after it landed on the ship. The wildlife division of the DENR-7 described the bird as tame and still stressed from its long journey. CARINE M. ASUTILLA/INQUIRER VISAYAS

CEBU CITY, Philippines—The eagle has landed, literally.

The crew of a cargo vessel bound for Taiwan was surprised to find a juvenile osprey, commonly called fish eagle, perched near the bow of the vessel on Nov. 16.

They decided to keep the bird and turned it over to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in Central Visayas (DENR-7) when they returned to Cebu province.

Ruel Duque, skipper of MV Chattanooga, turned over the eagle to Ariel Rica, head of the DENR-7 Biodiversity and Wildlife Management Section, on Nov. 20.

Rica said the eagle was about 6 months old and had just learned how to fly.

“This osprey may have been at the coast looking for food. These birds feed on sea snakes and small fish. It must have gotten tired and decided to rest on the ship,” Rica said.

Duque told Rica that one of his crew members found the eagle near the bow of the ship while in the waters off Batanes Island along the Babuyan Group of Islands on Nov. 16.

The vessel of Norseman Shipping Inc. was heading to Kaohsiung, Taiwan, at the time.

A crew member gave the bird a fish. He then set the bird free but it returned to the vessel after flying for a while.

The crew members decided to keep the bird at the mess hall until they returned to Cebu, where they turned it over to the DENR-7.

The osprey was about 54-58 centimeters long with a wingspan of 150-180 cm. It weighed about 1,400 to 2,000 grams.

Rica said they still had to check the condition of the eagle before sending it back to its natural habitat. The osprey is not an endangered species and is commonly found in the Philippines.