Critically Endangered
Philippine Eagle
Pithecophaga jefferyi
The Philippine eagle, also known as the monkey-eating eagle or great Philippine eagle, is a critically endangered species of eagle of the family Accipitridae that is endemic to forests in the Philippines.
Appearance
The Philippine eagle's nape is adorned with long, brown feathers that form a shaggy, mane-like crest. The eagle has a dark face and a creamy-brown nape and crown. The back of the Philippine eagle is dark brown, while the underside and underwings are white.
The Philippine eagle is typically reported as measuring 86–102 cm (2 ft 10 in – 3 ft 4 in) in total length, but a survey of several specimens from some of the largest natural history collections in the world found the average was 95 cm (3 ft 1 in) for males and 105 cm (3 ft 5 in) for females.
Range and habitat
The Philippine eagle is endemic to the Philippines and can be found on four major islands: eastern Luzon, Samar, Leyte, and Mindanao. Only six pairs are found on Samar, two on Leyte, and a few on Luzon. It can be found in Northern Sierra Madre National Park on Luzon and Mount Apo, Mount Malindang, and Mount Kitanglad National Parks on Mindanao.
In 1969, the Monkey-eating Eagle Conservation Program was started to help preserve this species. In recent years, protected lands have been established specifically for this species, such as the 700 km2 (170,000 acres) of Cabuaya Forest and the 37.2 km2 (9,200 acres) of Taft Forest Wildlife Sanctuary on Samar.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
The Philippine eagle has a wide range of prey that includes birds, reptiles and mammals (mainly civets and colugos). Each breeding pair requires a large home range to successfully raise a chick, thus the species is extremely vulnerable to deforestation.
Earlier, the territory has been estimated at 100 km2 (39 mi2), but a study on Mindanao Island found the nearest distance between breeding pairs to be about 13 km (8.1 mi) on average, resulting in a circular plot of 133 km2 (51 mi2). The species' flight is fast and agile, resembling the smaller hawks more than similar large birds of prey. The complete breeding cycle of the Philippine eagle lasts two years.
In crisis
The species had been classified by the IUCN Red List as critically endangered with a declining population and is one of the most endangered raptors in the world. The most significant threat to the species is loss of habitat, a result of high levels of deforestation throughout most of its range. In 1994, the IUCN and BirdLife International listed this species as critically endangered.
In 2015, about 600 were estimated to be left in the wild. Mining, pollution, exposure to pesticides that affect breeding, and poaching are also major threats.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Philippine Eagle is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Philippine eagle, Wikidata item Q185213. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
