The mighty Philippine eagle
The Philippine eagle is the national bird of the Philippines. It is the apex predator of tropical forests on the islands of Mindanao, Luzon, Leyte, and Samar. Most Philippine eagles, about 70% of them, live in Mindanao.
The Philippine eagle was once called the monkey-eating eagle because it eats monkeys as a major part of its diet. The blue-and-gray-eyed bird can grow to almost 1 meter (3 feet) in height, with a wingspan of 2 meters (nearly 7 feet), making it the largest bird in the Philippines.
There are only an estimated 400 pairs of Philippine eagles left in the wild, according to the Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF). The eagle is endangered due to deforestation and unsustainable hunting.
Protector of eagles
Tribal leader Datu Julito Ahao has dedicated nearly 40 years of his life to protecting Philippine eagles. To his fellow tribal members, Datu Julito Ahao is jokingly called matanglawin, which literally means “having an eye of an eagle.”
Under his watch, more than a dozen critically endangered Philippine eagles have hatched and survived in the wild since the mid-1980s.
Datu Julito Ahao was in his 20s when he first encountered a pair of Philippine eagles within Mount Apo Natural Park on the island of Mindanao. This area is the home to his people, the Obu Manuvu. Mount Apo is the Philippines’ highest mountain.
“It was fascinating to see the majestic bird,” says Datu Julito Ahao at his home in the remote village of Salaysay. He ventures deep into the forest alone three times a month, every 5th, 15th and 25th, to monitor a pair of Philippine eagles and any human activities that indicate a threat to the raptors.
It takes him at least two hours to walk from his house to an observation deck built by the PEF inside the dense jungle where the eagles like to nest. “I feel sick if I don’t scour the jungles to monitor the eagles. Sometimes I go hungry in the forest as I have no money to buy food to bring,” he says.
Since 2014, Datu Julito Ahao has led a volunteer brigade of community forest guards, known as Bantay Bukid, to protect the Philippine eagles and their forest habitat.
There are now 28 Bantay Bukid members in the village. Seven of them are women, including Melinda Ahao-Torres, Datu Julito Ahao’s daughter. “We roam the forests for signs of poaching, which could threaten the Philippine eagles in Mount Apo,” she says.
In 2022, the Bantay Bukid volunteers alerted authorities to logging activity, and helped stop it.
Now in his senior years, Datu Julito Ahao says he’ll continue looking after the eagles and their habitat, as he promised his ancestors. “Until I have the strength,” he says, “I will be protecting the eagles.”
David Brown adapted this story for Mongabay Kids. It is based on an article by Bong S. Sarmiento, published on Mongabay News:
