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Josiah Antonio - The Philippine Star
June 3, 2026 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — With the presence of one of the oldest Philippine Eagles, Girlie, Filipinos are reminded why their species should be protected.
Rescued as a juvenile in 1982 after a slingshot wound and damaged wing left her blind in one eye, Girlie has lived under human care for more than four decades.
She is now in her mid 40s, which is far older than the species’ typical lifespan, and has become the living emblem of an alliance between the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Philippine Eagle Foundation.
“Girlie is more than a resident of a city park; she is a living reminder of our shared responsibility,” DENR chief Juan Miguel Cuna said.
The DENR will continue to work with partners like the Philippine Eagle Foundation to protect the national birds’ habitat, support science based recovery and bring conservation into the daily lives of Filipinos, he added.
In the 1980s, Girlie was paired with a male Philippine Eagle named Tsai, and the pair produced the first fertile egg laid in captivity.
DENR said this was a milestone that proved what conservationists had long hoped was possible.
The chick did not survive, but the experiment altered the case for captive breeding and helped cement the PEF’s role as the country’s leading field organization for eagle recovery.
Over time, the collaboration shifted from experimental breeding to a broader portfolio: habitat protection, community engagement and public education.
“Government brings policy and reach; PEF brings field science and years of hands on experience,” Cuna said.
“Our collaboration shows what government and civil society can achieve when we align expertise with policy,” he added.
Cuna referred to Girlie’s presence in Metro Manila after she was transferred to the Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife Center in 2009 as a “strategic” move.
In a nation where only a few hundred breeding pairs remain in the wild, DENR said Girlie is a story people can see and respond to: a tangible, aging creature whose scars and longevity make abstract statistics feel immediate.
“She gradually emerged as the park’s ‘poster bird’ for Philippine Eagle conservation,” PEF executive director Dennis Salvador said.
The PEF-DENR alliance has increasingly emphasized the hard work of habitat protection: securing large tracts of continuous forest, working with local communities to reduce hunting and disturbance and applying science to monitor the remaining population.
“Years spent tracking eagle pairs, mapping their forest territories and studying population trends in the field help government use this data to create official protection zones and enforce environmental laws,” Salvador said.
“The partnership succeeds because it connects our research directly to national enforcement. Saving our national bird requires basing our joint actions on verified field data,” he added.
Girlie is a non releasable bird, her life shaped by human intervention; yet she has become a bridge between the remote, difficult work of field conservation and the urban public whose votes and attention can determine policy.
Her story is not a tidy success; it is a ledger of small victories and persistent losses. It is also, increasingly, a test of whether a government and a nonprofit can translate decades of collaboration into the political will and resources necessary to protect the forests that sustain the Philippine Eagle.
On a humid afternoon, visitors file past Girlie’s enclosure, children pointing at her crest, elders pausing to read the placard.
The bird watches with the slow, patient gaze of one that has outlived many expectations. In the hands of the PEF and the DENR, her endurance has become an argument: that conservation is not a single act but a long, often unglamorous partnership – and that, in a country of islands and forests, the fate of a species may depend on the steadiness of institutions as much as on the passion of individuals.
