The four young harpy eagles were taken to a release site in the Soberania National Forest. They were given time to acclimate, and then the doors to the enclosure were opened. The birds could come and go, and biologists hung food for them in trees and monitored their progress. This mimics the development of parent-reared birds: they would fledge at about six months of age, but the parents would continue to feed and watch over them until they reached about two years old, when they would be able to feed themselves and eventually go off on their own.