Endangered Philippine eagle shot dead three years after it was rescued … from another shooting
The raptor's remains were found on a forest floor last weekend with a gunshot wound on its right breast.
A rare giant Philippine eagle has been shot dead two months after being released back into the wild following treatment for another shooting, in a blow to efforts to save the species from extinction, conservationists said.
The raptor's remains were found on a forest floor last weekend with a gunshot wound on its right breast, three years after it was rescued and treated, the Philippine Eagle Foundation said.
It was the 30th to be found dead or wounded out of an estimated population of just 400 pairs in the wild, which reside mainly on the large southern island of Mindanao, its executive director Joseph Salvador said.
"Unfortunately, one person with a gun thinks he can shoot anything," Salvador said, adding no one has been arrested in the latest incident. "The potential to teach people the importance of the eagles to wildlife and biodiversity has been compromised."
Famed for its elongated nape feathers that form into a shaggy crest, the Philippine eagle, one of the world's largest, grows up to a metre long with a two-metre wingspan.
The Swiss-based International Union for the Conservation of Nature lists the species as "critically endangered", due to the depletion of its tropical rainforest habitat and hunting.