The Philippine eagle is considered one of the world’s rarest birds of prey, with roughly 400 breeding pairs left in the wild. Amid ongoing threats from logging and hunting, Indigenous forest rangers are helping conservationists protect the species’ nests and habitat, Mongabay contributor Bong S. Sarmiento reported last year.
Datu Julito Ahao of the Obu Manuvu Indigenous group, has been hailed as an “unsung hero” in the conservation of the Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi). Ahao told Mongabay it was “love at first sight” when, in his 20s, he first saw the raptor in Mount Apo Natural Park in the Philippines’ southern island group of Mindanao.
Ahao works closely with the Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF), sharing his sightings of eaglets and nests with the group.
Now officially retired, Ahao used to walk into the forest three times a month to monitor Philippine eagles and possible threats, work he continues today though less regularly. It takes him two hours to walk from his house to an observation deck inside the jungle. “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 told Sarmiento.
Fellow tribal members have called Ahao matanglawin, which means “having an eye of an eagle.” A sharp pair of eyes is a key asset for finding the birds across a typical breeding pair’s range of about 4,000 hectares (10,000 acres). The birds can grow to roughly 1 meter (3 feet) tall, with a wingspan of 2 m (nearly 7 ft).
Ahao said his concern for the eagle is rooted in ancestral beliefs and a local legend about a Philippine eagle that caught a hunter. Trapped in the nest with the eagle’s offspring, the hunter was flown back to his community once the eaglet grew strong enough to carry him. To honor the eaglet that saved the hunter, Ahao said his community must “take care of the eagle.”
Heeding that reminder from his ancestors, Ahao started leading a group of forest guards called Bantay Bukid in 2014.
The group worked voluntarily until 2017, when environmental groups lobbied for them to be paid 3,500 pesos ($61) a month from the municipal government. As of last year, there were 28 Bantay Bukid members from Ahao’s village.
For several years, Ahao and the group have worked with government agencies and the PEF to report and halt logging activities in sensitive eagle habitat. Bantay Bukid continues to be on alert against hunting; at least 11 eagles were wounded by hunters in the past five years.
Now in his senior years, Ahao is no longer officially part of Bantay Bukid, but he still helps monitor the raptors. “Until I have the strength,” he says, “I will be protecting the eagles.”
Read Bong S. Sarmiento’s full report here.
Banner image of a Philippine eagle by Aimee Valencia via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).
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