THE PHILIPPINE Eagle Foundation (PEF) was “deeply saddened” by the tragic death of Philippine Eagle “Uswag,” who accidentally crash-landed on the sea in Pilar, Cebu.
The demise of Uswag, a three-year-old male eagle, came a month after he was released in Burauen, Leyte. He was among the first batch of eagles to be released under the Species Reintroduction Project of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the PEF.
In its report, the PEF said it found the eagle’s lifeless body floating on August 3, along with debris of seagrass and algae in an area known as “samo,” where two different sea currents meet.
“Uswag was found floating along with sea debris with its GPS transmitter facing upward and its miniature solar panels exposed to the sun,” it said. “The body was already beginning to decompose.”
The raptor’s X-ray result showed neither signs of fracture nor trauma. There was also no evidence of bullets or air gun pellets.
“There was no visible evidence of shooting, trauma nor bodily injury and other anomalies,” said the PEF.
The organization believed that the cause of Uswag’s death was drowning, and the estimated time of his death was four to five days before he was retrieved.
42-hour search and recovery
Uswag was equipped with a 70-g solar-powered GPS-GSM transmitter to track and monitor his movement after he was released. The device was placed on his back using a teflon harness.
But on July 30, the PEF received a set of GPS readings from Uswag’s unit, indicating that the raptor was at sea. The last GPS reading it received before July 30 was the July 9 reading, which located Uswag at the western slopes of the Mt. Pangasugan Range in Baybay City.
A search and recovery operation was arranged the next day in collaboration with other government agencies including the Department of National Defense (DND) and the Department of Transportation (DOTr) to help in the search by providing possible air and sea assets.
The search kicked off on August 1 from the coasts of Barangay Gabas, with authorities onboarding the rescue boat of the local government of Baybay City.
On August 2, authorities received a new batch of GPA fixes, with the latest one indicating that Uswag was already along the coast between Poro and Ponson Islands (Camotes Islands) in Pilar, Cebu. The team reached out to the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) to aid the search.
Onboard a motorized fishing boat on August 3, the team continued their search and recovery operation to Cawit after receiving the latest GPS reading located about half a kilometer away from the shores of Barangay Cawit in Southern Pilar.
They were joined by three more motorized boats carrying PEF and Coast Guard personnel and volunteer fishermen from Cawit.
After 42 hours, they found Uswag’s body at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday and secured it inside a styrofoam box cooler filled with ice.
“It is very unfortunate that we lost Philippine Eagle ‘Uswag’ to accidental drowning. He was healthy and fit, and there were evidence based on field observations that he had already hunted successfully in the wild during the first few days after his release,” the PEF said.
It added, “Sadly, perhaps because of the rains and winds brought about by the Southwest monsoon, eagle ‘Uswag’ lost his flight bearings and got sucked in toward the sea.”
Crash-landing eagles
This was not the first time an eagle accidentally crash-landed on the sea. Based on its records, the PEF noted eight cases of immature eagles found floating on water. These incidents happened from 1984 to 2022, before Uswag’s death.
In September 2022, a dead eagle was found along the shoreline of Maasim town in Sarangani. It was the third reported Philippine eagle that crashed in the sea, following cases in 1993 and 2019.
According to the PEF, Philippine eagles—which can only be seen in Luzon, Samar, Leyte, and Mindanao in the country—are listed as “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with an estimated 400 pairs left in the wild.
