This is a Raptor rehabilitation & release program. The program is part of the work of Cikananga Wildlife Rescue Centre and initiated with the help of the Wanicare Foundation. All eagles housed in this centre are part of the program.

Although all raptor species in Indonesia are protected by law the illegal trade in raptors is not decreasing. On average about 100 raptors are being confiscated every year.

Between 2013 and 2014 alone Cikananga wildlife rescue center received a total of 21 eagles. In the past we could relocate confiscated eagles after their quarantine time to other specialized rehabilitation projects, however these programs are at the moment also dealing with overpopulation at their centers, consequently the last years the total number of eagles in Cikananga increased.

Therefore Cikananga wildlife Rescue Center and Wanicare Foundation initiated in 2012 the raptor rehabilitation and release program together with the help of Inge Tielen, who is now the project manager of this program.
On average we take care of 25-30 eagles from 3 different species; Crested serpent eagle, Changeable Hawk-eagle, and the endangered Javan Hawk-eagle.

At the moment we have 5 smaller rehabilitation cages to assess the hunting ability of eagles. When the raptors are capable of catching live prey they are moved to one of our two larger rehabilitation enclosures to grow their condition, social behavior, hunting skills and flying skills. The minimal time spend in these rehabilitation cages is about 1 month, but often this period is longer because many eagles arriving at the center are habituated to people due to long-term captivity. During their stay in the large rehabilitation cage their contact with humans will be kept at a minimal and food will be provided without them seeing people.

With 30 eagles our housing capacity at Cikananga reached its limit and many of these eagles cannot be released back to the wild due to injuries or imprinting on humans. Unfortunately it is not possible to translocate many these individuals to other places because there is a lack of eagle sanctuaries on Java that ensure animal welfare. This causes a second problem at our center, because due to the high number of eagles makes is difficult to guarantee high animal welfare for new arrivals.

Therefore we are planning to start the construction of more and better sanctuary enclosures, this will increase our housing capacity and new arriving eagles will have a better chance to rehabilitated successfully.

Please support our work. We are in need of funding to construct more Eagle enclosures. With you support we can rehabilitate and release many more Eagles.

Website of the Raptor release program

We are very pleased to have the IDEA Wild Fund at our side as a sponsor for the Wanicare Raptor Release Program.