FEATURE - Powerful bird of prey gets a boost in Panama
Date: 30-Apr-02
Country: PANAMA
Author: Robin Emmott
Fearful the harpy eagle soon will become extinct, the U.S-based World Center for Birds of Prey has set up a leading center in Panama to breed them in captivity and later release them in greater numbers into the wild.
Near extinction in Mexico and Central America and with dwindling numbers in South America, the harpy eagle is the animal kingdom's largest and most powerful bird of prey.
The size of a small child and with a wingspan of about 7 feet (2 meters), the graceful predator once numbered in the thousands from southern Mexico down to northern Argentina.
Today, fewer than 50 survive in Mexico and Central America and only a few hundred remain across Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, French Guiana and northern Argentina, environmentalists say.
The World Center for Birds of Prey set up Panama's Peregrine Fund on the edge of Panama City late in 2000 with the financial backing of the U.S Agency for International Development.
In January, the center saw the birth of a pair of harpy eagle chicks, the first to be born in captivity in Panama, and a second pair was born this month. The fund hopes to breed up to 10 eagles a year over the next 15 years, gradually releasing them throughout Central America.
"These incredible birds need our help at this critical stage if they are to survive," said Leonardo Salas, Panama's fund director.
FROM U.S. LAB TO PANAMA JUNGLE
Known as the great white shark of the bird world, the eagle has suffered heavily as tropical forests have been cut down to make way for economic development.
In the past 30 years, about 15 percent of the Brazilian Amazon had been deforested - an area the size of France - according to environmental lobby group Greenpeace.
A single harpy bird needs a preying ground about 12 square miles (30 sq km) to survive in the wild.
Poaching also has been a menace to the raptors and has decimated local populations of the bird.
The Panama fund follows a failed breeding project in the United States. From 1996 to 2000, several attempts were made in Idaho to breed the huge raptors in laboratories, using a controlled, artificial tropical climate.
"But only a few eggs hatched and the birds that were born were too weak to survive in the wild," Salas said.
In Panama, he and his team of scientists say the move from Idaho to a genuine tropical climate has helped to breed the eagles successfully.
Panama is particularly eager to prevent the extinction of the raptor, as the harpy eagle is the national bird and appears on the country's national crest.
The remote lakes and tropical forest areas on either side of the Panama Canal are one area where the birds can thrive, the Peregrine Fund says.
The fund, which spends about $30,000 a year to breed and keep the birds, also has 11 eagles donated from zoos in Venezuela, Ecuador and the United States. It aims to release these adult birds into the wild in the future.
TEACHING BIRDS TO SURVIVE
The Panama center will release the birds back into their natural habitat once they are strong enough to fend for themselves.
"We plan to allow the eagles to leave captivity as they learn to hunt. Initially they will be unable to catch prey and will always come back to us for food," Salas said.
"Gradually they will both hunt and, on days when there is no prey, come back to us," he said. "Eventually there will come a time when they do not need to return."
The harpy eagles prey on sloths, monkeys, macaws and large reptiles such as iguanas.
Salas said the best way to ensure the young birds survive in the wild is to breed them and then teach them to hunt in pairs, later releasing the male and female together. Harpy eagles mate for life but typically produce only one surviving chick - a factor that has contributed to the decline of the species.
"In the wild, the birds often disperse. We want to teach them to stick together from now on," Salas said.
Another fundamental aspect of the scheme is to teach p