MANILA, THE PHILIPPINESGathering rattan in their ancestral forest on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao in late March, a group of Indigenous Manobo Simuwawnon heard a commotion.

They rushed toward the racket and discovered a group of Manobo hunters huddled over an agitated animal in a trap. Intended for wild pigs and chickens, the trap had captured something unexpected: a large raptor with a cottony white underbelly and a shaggy crown of brown feathers.

Some of the hunters wanted to eat the bird for dinner. But Jerry Cotic, a village official with the rattan-gatherers, thought the unusual-looking creature deserved to live. He, along with fellow tribal member Richard Mahumoc, hatched a plan to buy the raptor from the trappers and hand it over to