Singapore’s Jurong Bird Park to house Philippine Eagle pair

by Marje Pelayo   |   Posted on Monday, May 20th, 2019

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) signed on Monday (May 20) a memorandum of agreement with the Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) for the loan of a pair of Philippine eagles.

The eagle pair, named “Geothermica” and “Sambisig”, will stay in Singapore’s Jurong Bird Park in the next 10 years for conservation and breeding of this critically-endangered bird species whose population at present counts to only less than 400 pairs.

According to Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu, the eagle pair will serve as ambassadors for Philippine biodiversity.

“Sending Geothermica and Sambisig to Singapore acts as a biosecurity measure to ensure the survival of the species and as a fallback population in the event of catastrophic events like disease outbreaks or extreme natural calamities taking place in their Philippine habitats,” Cimatu said.

Jurong Bird Park is the largest bird park in Asia.

It houses close to 3,500 birds across 400 species, of which 20 percent is threatened.

The signing of the loan agreement was witnessed by Singapore Ambassador to the Philippines Gerard Ho Wei Hong and Philippine Ambassador to Singapore Joseph del Mar Yap. – Marje Pelayo

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Hello Maru! Baby penguin takes first public waddle in Jurong Bird Park

The baby king penguin is the first of its kind to be hatched at the bird park in close to a decade.

13 Dec 2017 07:47PM (Updated: 14 Dec 2017 05:54PM)

SINGAPORE: A baby king penguin waddled into view in Singapore's bird park on Wednesday (Dec 13), the first of its kind to be hatched there in close to a decade.

Maru, which means "round" in Japanese, came from parents Zoro and Sora, part of the king penguin colony in the Jurong Bird Park's penguin exhibit, said Wildlife Reserves Singapore in a press release on Wednesday.

To maximise survival chances, keepers retrieved the egg and incubated it until it hatched on Oct 10.

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Jurong Bird Park to become proud hosts of rarest blue macaws

November 4, 2017 18:44 SGT

By Adrita Biswas

  

Singapore's Jurong Bird Park is now becoming the home of two of the world's rarest macaw species. The new arrivals -- the Spix's Macaw and the Lear's Macaw, will join the flight of Hyacinth Macaws in the zoological park.

The bird sanctuary in Singapore is going to be the world's only zoological park that can boast of being a home for all three species of blue macaw. The other blue macaw species, the Glaucous Macaw, was last seen in the 1960s and is believed to be extinct.

The conservation state of the other blue macaws is also dire, as the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) categorises all three bird species as worthy of conservation. The Hyacinth Macaw currently falls under theVulnerable category. The Spix's Macaw, which was last spotted in the wild in 2005, is listed as Critically Endangered, with about 150 still surviving globally.  The Lear's Macaw is also an Endangered species which has about 1,300 individuals in the wild.

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Jurong Bird Park releases more hornbills on Pulau Ubin

Three more captive-bred Oriental Pied Hornbills were released into the wild on Wednesday, in a bid by the Jurong Bird Park to diversify the giant bird's genetic pool. "Increasing (the genetic pool)...is important to the conservation of the species because it allows for a healthier population of these birds. With more genetic diversity, the species is less susceptible to diseases," said Dr Minerva Bongco-Nuqui, avian curator at the Bird Park.

The birds had been fed whole fruit weeks prior to their release onto Pulau Ubin, to acclimatise them. They were then given a thorough health check on Monday, and measured for research purposes.

Since 2009, the Bird Park has released nine birds from its collection onto Pulau Ubin and the mainland. There are today about 100 hornbills here, up from an estimated 20 in 2004. The species - once common here - had vanished with urbanisation in the 1920s, but returned in the mid-1990s.

Continued