Thesis (BS Applied Mathematics) -- University of the Philippines Mindanao, 2002

This paper presents the various approaches in determining the home range of the Philippine eagle. Pithecophaga jefferyi. One hundred four telemetry points of a male adult eagle in Barangay Datu Salumay, Marilog District, Davao City were utilized to measure the eagle's home range area using the home range analysis software, California Home Range (CALHOME) Analysis. Three home range estimators, computed in different levels of resolution, were used: minimum convex polygon, bivariate normal home range model, and harmonic mean method. The 90% minimum convex polygon (3529 ha) produced the most reasonable home range estimate of the Philippine eagle by discarding ten telemetry points (outliners) in the computation. It eliminated a large portion of unwanted areas inside the polygon that the eagle did not actually visit or travel to. The bivariate normal home range model estimate produced a large elliptical home range area since more than one center of activity was observed. Furthermore, all harmonic mean method estimates produced imprecise home range areas because of its dependence on the grid cell size chosen. On the other hand, the 50% harmonic mean method estimate on the core area size of the Philippine eagle overlaid with a 40 x 40 grid cell size (1329 ha) produced the smoothest region where most of the clustered points were found. This became the basis for selecting it as the area most intensively used by the eagle.