Willoughby Lowe (1872-1949) was a highly-praised collector for the Natural History Museum in London as well as an all-round naturalist. Counting just birds he added over 10,000 specimens to the Museum. Lowe wrote two books on the various expeditions of which he had been part and there are summaries available online on what he did and where he went. However there is little of his life and background. He travelled with interesting, important and infamous people in pursuing the zoology of the day. In an endeavour to provide a fuller picture of Lowe I have scoured family trees (often inaccurate or incomplete), original material available on genealogy websites (again thanks to clerical errors sometimes inaccurate) and the like. There are still important gaps and I hope readers will contact me if they have more information. To make that job more manageable, I am splitting Lowe’s life into parts. This fourth part deals with the aftermath of his collecting trip to the Philippines in 1907.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 |
| Painting from life of the Monkey-eating Eagle at London Zoo by Henrik Grønvold from Seth-Smith 1910 |
 |
| Claudio Lopez y Lopez |
The Spanish-owned Clyde-built ship Claudio Lopez y Lopez docked in Liverpool on 30 August 1909. Very soon a crate was unloaded and sent on to London. The next day the avian occupant of the crate reached London Zoo and promptly became a media star.
To recap, Willoughby Lowe had called on his friend Father Llanos (the spelling varies by account) in Manila before leaving in August 1907. Father Llanos said that he would get a live Monkey-eating Eagle for him. Thanks to an article in The Ibis on that eagle and the species in general by David Seth-Smith (1875-1963 in 1910, I can add some flesh to the bones of the story. A search also showed that Father Llanos was the Rev. Florencio Llanos, Director of the Museum of Santo Tomas University in Manila who also seemed to have been known earlier by his double-barrelled surname Llanos y Lopez. The museum, founded in 1871, is the oldest in the Philippines.
I have combined information from the paper by Seth-Smith, passenger lists available online and additional information from seemingly reliable press reports. Seth-Smith followed up his article with a letter to The Ibis containing information on the bird bound for London and on the habits of the bird in the wild. Seth-Smith though provided the caveat:
It should, however, be understood that Father Llanos received his information from natives, and that it would be unwise to place too much reliance upon its exact accuracy.
Did Seth-Smith not realise that the best people to talk to about their native fauna are the local inhabitants? However, he may have been questioning the interpretation of what had happened when the bird was trapped since shortly afterwards another one was caught but it being larger broke the cord of the snare and escaped. This larger bird was referred to as a male but of course in birds of prey it is the female that is larger and so the ‘female’ bird in London may have been a male. But it wasn’t. Post mortem it did prove to be a female.
Llanos wrote to Willoughby Lowe on 12 January 1909 reporting that a specimen had been trapped alive on the island of Mindanao. It had been caught in September 1908 by using a noose set by native trappers with a small pig as bait. Another letter sent on 3 May 1909 reported that the bird was doing well in a large cage and renewing its tail feathers. On 13 July the eagle left Manila for Liverpool via the usual ports, the Suez Canal and Spain. It was looked after on board by the ‘Captain and two passengers’ according to The Field of 4 September. It was fed on chickens. The Captain of the ship was Ramon de Llano but I think he must have been the sole keeper for the last bit of the voyage since there were no passengers from Manila on board by the time the ship docked in Liverpool.
I have not been able to find if the bird was met on arrival by anybody from London Zoo or escorted at all on that journey which surely would have been by rail.
Seth-Smith noted that the eagle preferred eating newly-killed pigeons to rabbits and other small mammals.
Media and public interest in happenings at London Zoo in the early decades of the 20th century was intense and aided to a considerable extent by the Zoo’s publicity machine. The eagle appeared in numerous articles, sometimes with photographs, in the newspapers and magazines. The Daily Mirror, then aimed at a middle-class readership, carried a photograph as did several well-known magazines. Provincial newspapers throughout Britain carried a short syndicated piece.
 |
| Daily Mirror 2 September 1909 |
I suspect there were several elements that made this an attractive story. Firstly the name, Monkey-eating Eagle, conjures the vision of a huge predator swooping on monkeys in the tree tops. Secondly, it was the first seen in captivity outside the Philippines. Thirdly, an earlier but dead specimen had made the newspapers in London since it was the type specimen to which its scientific name was linked. The gist of the story (see HERE for details) is that Juan, the servant of John Whitehead the British naturalist-explorer, trapped the bird in 1896. The specimen was sent to the Natural History Museum in London. Its first appearance was at a meeting of the British Ornithologists' Club held in a restaurant on Oxford Street in December of the same year. William Robert Ogilvie-Grant from the Museum who exhibited the skin named the the bird Pithecophaga jefferyi, the generic name to reflect its alleged sole prey of monkeys, the specific name, for Whitehead’s father who financed his son’s travels. The story of the eagle was, in a competitive era between museums, between zoos and between countries, seen as a double first for British zoology—alive and dead.
Seth-Smith used a painting of the bird at the Zoo by the well known natural history illustrator Henrik Grønvold (who also provided illustrations for Lowe’s The Trail That Is Always New). Anybody who has kept birds-of-prey will realise that the bird depicted is unwell. Indeed it survived only 5 months in London. Seth-Smith wrote:
On the 8th of February, 1910, this Eagle refused its food for the first time, and on the following day looked decidedly “out of sorts,” though it was impossible to determine what was wrong with it. It died three days later, the post mortem revealing tuberculosis as the cause of death. The atmosphere of London must be so very different from the pure air of the mountainous regions where this species has its home, that perhaps it is not surprising that it should be susceptible to a disease which is all too prevalent in large towns; but the loss of this fine bird, the first of its kind to reach any Zoological Garden, is very much to be regretted. It is satisfactory to know that the specimen, which proved to be a female, has been well mounted by Rowland Ward and is now exhibited in the Natural History Museum.
 |
| A drawing by Henrik Grønvold from Seth-Smith 1910 |
The newspapers covered the death of the eagle but a fair number made a hash of the report, stating that Willoughby Lowe himself brought the bird back from the Philippines. Later in the year that mistake was repeated when the mounted bird was first exhibited at the Natural History Museum. The London Evening Standard gave credit to Willoughby Lowe for capturing the bird and bringing it back alive. Oh well, journalistic standards have never been high.
The Monkey-eating Eagle has had its name changed to Philippine Eagle and there is now a considerable amount of information on the Critically-Endangered species. It is the longest of the eagles but being a forest bird shorter winged than the eagles of open country. Seth-Smith said it reminded him of a huge goshawk. Both the Harpy Eagle (Harpia harpyja) from South America and Steller’s Sea Eagle (Haliaeetus pelagicus) are heavier and bulkier.
Deforestation by logging or clearance for agriculture is the major problem for maintaining a stable population since the territory occupied by a breeding pair is over 40 square miles. The species has been bred in captivity in the Philippines since 1992 mainly by artificial insemination. However, when the amount of suitable habitat is limiting population regrowth, all the captive breeding in the world is not going to provide the solution.
The eagle in London in 1909-1910 was the start of zoos in Europe, North America and Japan having individuals on display until the late 1980s. One in Rome Zoo, an adult when captured, lived for another 41 years. A history of the individuals kept in captivity by Richard Weigl and Marvin Jones appeared in 2000.
Finally, a great deal is now known about what these eagles eat in the wild. They are opportunistic predators as the Wikipedia article shows, taking prey from the size of a small bat to a small deer. On islands where there are colugos (Mindanao) they are the main prey. On Luzon where colugos are absent, monkeys, cloud rats and reptiles make up the bulk of the diet. Domestic mammals and poultry do not remain unmolested; neither do large birds like owls and hornbills.
 |
| A photograph I took in Manila Zoo in January 1967 The cere shows signs of recent damage such as is seen in birds having flown into large mesh wire netting. I wonder if it had been in one of the large aviaries before being moved to this cage with relatively small mesh. |
Seth-Smith D. 1910. On the Monkey-eating Eagle of the Philippines (Pithecophaga jefferyi). Ibis 52, 285-290.
Seth-Smith D. 1910. [Letter]. Ibis 52, 758-759.
Weigl, R, & Jones, M. L. (2000). The Philippine Eagle in captivity outside the Philippines, 1909–1988. International Zoo News vol. 47/8 (305).
