Bogor, West Java – Mount Gede Pangrango National Park has released an adult female Javan hawk-eagle (Nisaetus bartelsi) named Kalina into the wild after 21 months of rehabilitation.
The release was overseen by Mount Gede Pangrango National Park Center chief Sapto Aji Prabowo at the Cimungkad Resort of the park in Sukabumi regency, West Java, on Jan 4.
Sapto said Kalina was initially received by officers at the Javan Hawk-Eagle Conservation Education Center (PPKEJ) at the Mount Gede Pangrango National Park on March 14, 2022, from the West Java Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BBKSDA) for rehabilitation.
Keepers at the national park and from the neighboring Mount Halimun Salak National Park's Center's Javan Hawk-Eagle Rescue Center rehabilitated Kalina for around 21 months.
After health and behavioral inspections, as well as a survey of potential locations for release from Dec. 14 to 15, Kalina was deemed "ready for release."
Sapto said it took a long time for Kalina to be ready to be released into her original habitat, and he expressed the hope that there would not be another Javan hawk-eagle that needed to be rehabilitated.
"It was not easy for our partners at the Cimungkad Resort to rewild Kalina," Sapto said on Thursday.
He said he hoped Kalina could reproduce healthily in the wild to increase the Javan hawk-eagle population not just at Mount Gede Pangrango National Park but for the whole of Java Island.
The Javan hawk-eagle is listed as endangered according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
The Mount Gede Pangrango National Park monitors about eight individual Javan hawk-eagles, which Sapto said proved that the national park's forest was still well enough protected for the Javan hawk-eagles to live and reproduce.
The Javan hawk-eagle is one of the three flagship species at the Mount Gede Pangrango National Park, besides the Javan leopard and Javan gibbon. (ami)