Current view: Data table and detailed info
Taxonomic source(s)
del Hoyo, J., Collar, N.J., Christie, D.A., Elliott, A. and Fishpool, L.D.C. 2014. HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World. Volume 1: Non-passerines. Lynx Edicions BirdLife International, Barcelona, Spain and Cambridge, UK.
SACC. 2005 and updates. A classification of the bird species of South America. Available at: https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm.
IUCN Red List criteria met and history
Red List criteria met
Red List history
| Migratory status |
not a migrant |
Forest dependency |
high |
| Land-mass type |
continent
|
Average mass |
- |
Population justification: The species is generally rare throughout its range. It has a very large territory and is patchily distributed (Thiollay 1989). In Brazil, it is most common in Amazonia, and rare in the Atlantic forest (Banhos et al. 2018). It is now very scarce in Mexico (A. Monroy-Ojeda in litt. 2021) and in Costa Rica (C. Sánchez in litt. 2021).
Records for the area occupied by one breeding pair include 45-79 km2 in Venezuela, 10-20 km2 in Panama (Alvarez-Cordero 1996), 43 km2 in Peru (Piana 2007), 47.8 km2 and 19.6 (+/- 5.7) km2 in Ecuador (Muñiz-López 2008, 2016), and 14-16 km2 in Panama (Vargas González and Vargas 2011). In the arc of deforestation in Mato Grosso, Brazil, the species was recorded at a nest density of 1.97–4.84 nests/100 km2 of forest habitat, or 0.79–3.07 nests/100 km2 where deforested areas were included in the calculation (Miranda et al. 2021a).
National population size estimates have included 1,000-2,000 mature individuals in French Guiana (MNHN, UICN France and GEPOG 2018), 5,000-10,000 individuals (roughly equivalent to 3,300-6,700 mature individuals) in Peru (Piana 2018) and 806-1,208 pairs (equivalent to 1,612-2,416 mature individuals) in Panama, which was thought likely to be an overestimate (Vargas González and Vargas 2011).
Based on the minimum and median of the above density estimates for Panama, the estimated area of tree cover with at least 50% canopy cover within the mapped range in 2020 (below 310 m and total: approximately 76,700 km2 and 108,000 km2; Global Forest Watch 2021), the population size in Central America is inferred to be within the range of 11,000-22,000 individuals, roughly equivalent to 7,600-15,000 mature individuals.
Based on the minimum and median of the above density estimates for Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador and Brazil, the estimated area of tree cover with at least 50% canopy cover within the mapped range in 2020 (below 310 m and total: approximately 4,380,000 km2 and 6,027,000 km2; Global Forest Watch 2021), the population size in South America is inferred to be within the range of 160,000-421,000 individuals, roughly equivalent to 110,000-281,000 mature individuals.
The global population size is therefore tentatively estimated to fall within the range 118,000-225,000 mature individuals. Hunting and selective logging are likely to have depleted population densities across large parts of the species's range, so the true population size may be lower; to account for uncertainty, the population size is here placed in the band 100,000-250,000 mature individuals.
Genetic analysis in Brazil suggested a single subpopulation in the country (Banhos et al. 2016), so the species is suspected to have a single subpopulation.
Trend justification: From 2001 to 2020, approximately 8% of tree cover with at least 50% canopy cover was lost from within the species's range (Global Forest Watch 2021). Assuming that the annual area of forest loss remains constant and extrapolating forwards, approximately 27% is projected to be lost over three generations (60 years) from 2020. The rate of deforestation within the species's range appeared to be particularly high over 2016-2017 (Global Forest Watch 2021). If the 2016-2020 rate of deforestation were to continue over three generations, a loss of 38% may be projected.
Although the Harpy Eagle appears to be fairly tolerant of degraded forest and human-modified landscapes (Alverez-Cordero 1996; Aguiar-Silva 2016; Bowler et al. 2020), it is unable to tolerate landscapes with less than 50% forest cover remaining (Miranda et al. 2021a) and does not usually cross forest gaps of more than c.500 m (Aguiar-Silva 2016). Furthermore, the species's preference for very large trees as nest sites potentially makes it susceptible to selective logging (Miranda et al. 2020). The species's population size therefore can be assumed to be declining as its forest habitat is lost. Additionally, the species is subject to hunting and persecution across much of its range, which may have a greater impact on the species's population size than deforestation in some areas (E. Miranda in litt. 2021; A. Monroy-Ojeda in litt. 2021). The species is thought to be locally or regionally extinct in large parts of its former range, likely as a result of deforestation and hunting.
Assuming that the species's population size declines at at least the same rate that its habitat is lost, and that hunting and persecution may cause an additional decline of up to 50% of the rate of tree cover loss, the species's population size is suspected to decline by 27-57% over the next three generations (60 years) from 2020. Based on the available information, the best estimate of the rate of decline is considered most likely to fall below 50% over the next three generations. The percentage population size reduction over the past three generations is not known.
Country/territory distribution
Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBA)
Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Species factsheet: Harpy Eagle Harpia harpyja. Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/harpy-eagle-harpia-harpyja on 22/12/2024.
Recommended citation for factsheets for more than one species: BirdLife International (2024) IUCN Red List for birds. Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/search on 22/12/2024.
