A national symblol on the brink of extinction

By T. Sima Gunawan

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia and the United States have at least two things in common: both have adopted eagles as national symbols, and both of these symbolic eagles are endangered.

The bald eagle adorns the coat of arms of the United States and is its national bird. Indonesia has the mythical burung garuda on its shield, and honors the Javan hawk eagle as the national bird.

"Burung garuda doesn't really exist, but it is similar to the Javan hawk eagle," said Ani Mardiastuti, a wildlife ecologist from the Department of Forest Resource Conservation at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture.

Burung garuda is the mythical bird carrier of the god Visnhu and is the Ramayana hero which saved princess Sita from Rahwana, the evil giant.

The Java hawk eagle (Spizaetus bartelsi), one of the 60 species of eagles in the world, is on the brink of extinction. The exact number of the birds is not known, but it is estimated that there are only 200 left in Indonesia. They live in areas below 3,000 meters right across Java.

The Java hawk eagle population has been sharply reduced by poaching, pesticides, and shrinking habitats, according to Soemarsono, the director general of Forest Protection and Nature Preservation at the Ministry of Forestry.

His conservation directorate, in cooperation with the Conservation Breeding Specialist Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, held a workshop on the Java hawk eagle earlier this month to promote efforts to preserve the rare species.

Ulysses S. Seal, chairman of the Conservation Breeding Specialist Group, said that the American bald eagle was in critical danger 20 years ago, but continuous conservation efforts have paid off since then.

"Twenty years ago, we only had about 450 birds. Today the number is around 4,000," he told The Jakarta Post.

Illegal hunters and pesticide pollution were also the main threat to the bald eagles, Seal said. Many bald eagles were poisoned after eating fish from rivers contaminated by chemicals like DDT.

"After we banned the use of DDT years ago, the reproduction of the bird increased," he said.

Saving the eagles' habitat and protecting the birds from human beings who want them as pets is essential and can only be accomplished if the government and the public cooperate.

"In this case, the commitment of people is essential," Seal stressed.

He warned that the Java hawk eagle, like other endangered species, could become extinct if its habitat is not managed properly.

Indonesia is home to more than 1,500 different kinds of birds, or 17 percent of the world's bird species.

As an endangered species, the Java hawk eagle is protected by the law with a maximum fine of up to Rp 100 million (US$43,500) and a subsidiary jail term of up to five years.

President Soeharto declared the Java hawk eagle, which was first classified in 1924, the national bird in 1993. He named the Komodo dragon the national land species, and the arowana the national fish.

Since 1994, Soemarsono's directorate and Bird Life International have conducted a series of conservation studies on Java hawk eagles.

They found that the primary threats are the poaching of young eagles from nests for the pet trade, and the continued degradation of forest habitats, particularly on the margins of upland forest areas. The Central Java population is considered the most vulnerable to forest degradation because the province has yet to develop a network of protected areas. It has been suggested that reserves be established on Mt. Slamet and Mt. Prahu in Central Java.

A Java hawk eagle breeding program is also being set up at the Safari Park in Cisarua, West Java.

The park has six Java hawk eagles of between two and six years old. The captive birds were either given to the park by pet owners or handed over by wildlife authorities who seized them from recalcitrant owners.

The eagles are fed one-week-old chickens, with supplements of kangaroo or buffalo meat.

Weighing between 1.3 and 1.5 kg, one eagle eats between four and six chicks a day and 50 grams of meat a week, said Sharmy Prastiti, a park officer.

Five of the eagles live in a 3-meter-high cage with 4-square- meters of floor space. The other eagle, which is tame, shares a cage with other tamed birds of prey. The park is building a 24- square-meter cage to support the breeding program.

"One of the problems we have is that we don't know the sex of the birds," Sharmy disclosed at the workshop.

The park director, Jansen Manansang, said he will invite an international eagle expert to help with the breeding program. Indonesia does not have an expert on eagles.

He told the Post that the workshop was expected to foster the breeding program.

"This is just the beginning," Jansen said.

Asked when the program is scheduled to start, he said it depended on funding.