Davao student wins international award on determining sex of Phil Eagles
Completing a research project while still in high school about determining the sex of Philipine Eagles, this 16 year old boy from Davao City competed in the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) and won in the competition.
Jovani Tomale traveled to Reno, Nevada in May to present a computer program that detemine the sex of a Philippine Eagle and took home 2nd Special Award from the American Statistical Association (ASA).
Tomale, now an SM Foundaion scholar and studying accountancy freshman of the Ateneo de Davao University, formulated the computer software during his senior year at Davao City National High School with the supervision of Aristoniel Cabonilas, research consultant and Vladimer Jobayashi of the University of the Philippines-Mindanao.
He said he learned during one of their field trips at the conservation breeding facility in Davao that the Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF) had a problem determining the sex of Philippine Eagles.
He designed a computer program which systematically determines the sex of a Philippine Eagle using the eagle’s weight, height, age, etc. using the data from the PEF as basis for the program.
PEF research coordinator Jayson Ibanez said data from eagles whose sex are already determined were entered into a software and the results were promising as it did not return a single incorrect finding.
Tomale’s software competed against the works of more than 1,500 exceptional high school students from more than 50 countries.
He said he hopes that his study helps the Philippine Eagle Foundation on increasing the dwindling number of Philippine Eagles.
The software is yet to be adopted by PEF and has not been tested on a newly hatched eaglet even as Ibanez said that Tomale’s work is a welcome addition to the PEF’s variety of tools on its conservation work.
PEF biologist Ana Mae Sumaya said the tool is really a big help in their conservation considering that they just estimate whether the eaglet is male or female but failed on many occasions. The other method is for them to wait for the eagles to reach sexual maturity which is at five years for female and seven for males by then the sex of the eales is easily detemined by observing breeding behavior through males mount while females ift their tail feathers to allow copulation.
Right now there are 35 eagles at the PEF conservation site with 17 females and 18 males.
PEF communications manager Tatit Quiblat on the other hand said one Philippine Eagle occupies 7,000 hectares of forest but with the status of our forest now there is not enough for everyone because based on data they gathered the country is losing about 270,000 hectares of forest and this is an alarming figure.
She also said the Philippine Eagle is in the global list of endangered species and PEF’s aims to get the bird delisted.
“This is our indicator for success and we want to increase the population of the eagles,” she said.
She said they embark an Adoption Program and right now they have 17 benefactors even as she said that the eagles in the wild also need to be monitored.
To adopt an eagle would cost a benefactor P100,000 each year whether in captivity or in the wild saying that they need to monitor also eagle’s nest and put protective measures as well like supporting forest guards and others.
She urge the public to help in saving the eagle and the forest as well by reducing the threats in the environment.
(Prix B. Banzon) (Included in the stories I write about Environment)
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