Apart from the Philippine eagle, perhaps there is only one other animal that can best symbolize the mass extinction of species that is happening here in the Philippines—the Tamaraw. Once found in the thousands in the island of Mindoro in the early 1900s, it is estimated that fewer than 300 survive today.
The reasons for the dramatic decline in the Tamaraw’s population are many. The three most notable factors which led to it are:
1. the introduction of cattle into Mindoro in the early 1900s 2. rampant hunting of the species and 3. the widespread logging that destroyed much of Mindoro’s forests where the Tamaraws live.In the 1930s, there was an outbreak of the deadly rinderpest disease among the cattle herds in Mindoro. The rinderpest plague eventually spread to the Tamaraws and caused thousands of deaths among them. When the plague subsided, less than a thousand Tamaraws were left.
In the 1960s and 70s, hunters with automatic weapons flew to Mindoro from Manila to hunt Tamaraws for sport.
