DAVAO CITY – The Philippine Eagle Foundation recently welcomed its newest hatchling, Chick No. 31, just in time for its 38th anniversary on Feb. 18.
RILEY (FB)
Hatched on Jan. 16 at the National Bird Breeding Sanctuary in the hinterlands of Toril District here, the Philippine Eagle chick was named Riley and an offspring of Sinag and Dakila.
The hatching of the eagle marks a groundbreaking achievement as it is the first-ever documented unassisted natural hatching, the PEF said in a statement.
“The egg hatched on its own, or the chick was able to break and hatch out by itself without any help from our team, just like how eggs are hatched in the wild. This means that the chick is fit and healthy. “
In the past, PEF personnel assisted hatched eagles in the hatching process.
The PEF said it took them a month to announce the new chick because they wanted to make sure that it is healthy and will survive before they would announce it to the public.
“Filipinos deserve some good news nowadays and announcing the hatching of a healthy chick whose odds of surviving to maturity is high is the best inspiration we can give to the public.”
PEF personnel monitored the chick's progress and mapped out its growth rate and compared it with captive-bred birds that survived.
Remarkably, the chick's growth pattern is well within the range for healthy chicks, PEF said.
The chick now weighs 1.6 kilograms, which is 35 percent of the weight of a fully grown male eagle and is set to be transferred to a bigger nest to accommodate its increasing size.
PEF consultant Domingo Tadena told Manila Bulletin that the first month of the chick was the most critical as there are also other important requirements in husbandry such as sun-bathing, bone-feeding, and roughage (fur and skin) of prey items.
Tadena, a seasoned Philippine Eagle conservationist and NBBS facility manager, said that Riley was the 23rd chick to hatch under his watch.
Riley, adopted by Eagle Cement Corp., is currently isolated at the chick-rearing laboratory at the NBBS.
The Philippine Eagle is listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) with an estimated number of only 400 pairs left in the wild.