Philippine: Dating Centre for Hornbills and Eagle-Owls

The first ever threatened species ‘dating centre’ at the Biodiversity Conservation Centre NFEFI-BCC will soon be ready to house endangered hornbills and Philippine eagle owls.
The construction of the new range of breeding aviaries started in February 2010 and finished at the end of the last year. This range comprises 4 large interconnecting flight aviaries with rear shelters and service corridor. The service corridor is also designed to function as an interior flight cage: every single animal of any species or sex may be temporarily housed in it. The rare flight cage will provide the housed animal with full contact with unmated individuals of the other sex housed in the adjoining aviaries (e.g. a female kept in the flight corridor can get equal access to and choose any one of two or more male birds maintained separately in each aviary). In this way a single animal will be able to select its own mate amongst the available birds. This “dating centre” for “mate choice trial” is intended to provide optimal mate-choice opportunities, whilst also avoiding potential stress and losses arising from mixing incompatible individuals.
Stiftung Artenschutz supported the infrastructural development at NFEFI-BCC. The financial aid is urgently needed: the construction of the new breeding aviaries and the costs of undertaking some important and urgent renovations of the original aviaries constructed about 12 years ago proved considerably more expensive to complete than originally expected as the price of most raw materials suddenly went up.