Donate Feathers

The demand for Mountain Hawk-Eagle feathers by Taiwanese indigenous culture is one of the causes of the increased hunting pressure on the wild population. To mitigate the pressure on the wild population while respecting the need of the indigenous tradition, we are asking for donations of Mountain Hawk-Eagle feathers so that a repository can be established for the indigenous people to legally obtain the feathers.

If you have Mountain Hawk-Eagle feathers that you are willing to donate, please e-mail us (iwcraptor@gmail.com) with the following information, and we will reply as soon as possible.

l Name of donor (or Anonymous)

l Contact number

l Affiliation

l The quantity of the feathers you are donating

Upon receiving your donation message, we will:

• Contact you for more information and provide you with the documentation needed to ship the feather(s) to our lab (we will pay for the postage).

• Send the feather(s) to the Repository in Pingtung to be cleansed, photographed and stored.

• Document the appearance and other information of the feather(s) and upload the information to this database.

The feathers will be stored in the Repository until future application procedure is written and announced. The indigenous people who are traditionally qualified¹ to wear the feathers can then apply to retrieve and possess the feathers in the Repository as needed.

The Repository accepts feathers from the following source:

1. Confiscated feathers from the governmental agencies

2. Naturally molted feathers from domestic facilities or persons

3. Naturally molted feathers from foreign facilities or persons

¹In the traditional social ranking system of the Paiwan and Rukai tribes, only the chiefs can wear the feathers of Mountain Hawk-Eagle – the majestic bird of the forest.