Wounded Philippine hawk eagle rescued in Quezon

BIRD OF PREY This juvenile Philippine hawk eagle caught in Mulanay, Quezon, tries to scare off Department of Environment and Natural Resources personnel in Catanauan town who are treating its injured talon on Sunday. MULANAY MAYOR ARIS AGUIRRE FACEBOOK PHOTO

LUCENA CITY, QUEZON, Philippines — A juvenile Philippine hawk-eagle (Nisaetus philippensis), which was accidentally wounded by a farmer, was rescued in a mountainous village of Mulanay town in Quezon province on Saturday.

Gelo Amisola, Mulanay public information officer, reported on Sunday that the young hawk eagle lost a claw after a farmer accidentally hit the bird with a sickle while gathering coconuts near Mt. Kamhantik in the boundary of Cambuga and Buenavista villages.

“There were three eagles but the two flew away,” Amisola said in a message posted on the chat group of Lucena City-based media reporters on Sunday.

He said the wound of the bird was on its right talon and was immediately attended to by authorities in Mulanay.

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Amisola said the local government contacted the Department of Environment and Natural Resources office in neighboring Catanauan town for the agency to take custody of the hawk-eagle.

“If the injury needs further treatment, we will bring the bird to Calauan, Laguna, for health care and rehabilitation before releasing it back to the wild,” John Dave Natividad, assistant park area superintendent of the Buenavista Protected Landscape where Kamhantik is located, said in a phone interview on Sunday.

Home to wildlife

Mt. Kamhantik is home to scores of wildlife like eagles, rare hornbills, wild cats and cave bats.

In 1998 during the construction of a relay station tower of a telecommunications firm atop Kamhantik, archaeologists unearthed remnants of an ancient community with rectangular limestone coffins on its burial ground on the mountain peak.

The mountain is part of the Buenavista Protected Landscape, a conservation area and an archaeological site. It is an important watershed area composed of secondary-growth forest, grassland and coconut land.

The area was primarily set aside for watershed protection and timber production in 1937 by then President Manuel Quezon, covering approximately 356 hectares (880 acres).

In 2000, it was reestablished by President Joseph Estrada as a protected landscape area under the National Integrated Protected Areas System.

The Philippine hawk eagle or north Philippine hawk eagle is endemic to the Philippines. It is threatened by habitat loss and trapping.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species has assessed it as endangered with the population being estimated at 400 to 600 mature individuals remaining.