Once present in the vast grasslands and open forests of Cambodia plus Laos, a near-mythical wild cattle types has not been definitively sighted for more than half a century. Recognised by its physical highlights of a humped back, drooping neck plus curved horns, Cambodia’s national mammal – the kouprey – lives on in a way.
Experts say the animal is “ most likely to be extinct , ” but a mix of local politics plus data deficiencies possess kept an official status of extinction at bay. Researchers are now performing the first kouprey-specific research in more than a decade.
The particular team of conservationists is attempting to determine unsurveyed potential kouprey habitat in the expectations of contributing an “evidence-based piece to the kouprey puzzle, ” said Andrew Tilker, who is spearheading the research for conservation company Re: Wild.
“Until we now have resolved whether or not the types could still be available with a certain amount of confidence, that poser will continue hanging over this types, ” Tilker stated.
The elusive cattle
Statues of kouprey, the national mammal of Cambodia, embellish the roundabout of Wat Phnom, a historic pagoda within Phnom Penh and the entrance of Phnom Tamao Zoological Park and Wildlife Rescue Center. Photo: Anton L. Delgado just for Southeast Asia World
The kouprey’s image is not hard to find in Cambodia. Statues of it can be seen along the driveway of Cambodia’s national tierpark, and on roundabouts on Phnom Penh’s historic Wat Phnom pagoda and in Senmonorom city.
But the animal itself is not seen since the earlier 1970s.
“There are likely a lot more kouprey statues existing than there are kouprey in the wild, ” Tilker said.
The first scientific description of the kouprey was made in 1937. What small is known of the animal’s biology comes mostly from expeditions in Cambodia undertaken in the year 1950s and early sixties. These expeditions discovered that kouprey naturally existed in lower densities, but experts attribute the decline of wild populations to high levels of hunting in the region. Whilst kouprey sightings had been claimed in the 1980s, the last confirmed kouprey sighting was in 1969 in northern Cambodia.
This year, the IUCN’s Asian Wild Cattle Specialist Group assessed approximately 90% of the region’s camera trap pictures, some taken in the kouprey’s range, and found no images of the animal.
The first phase associated with Tilker’s study, that is already underway, contains combing through information from historic journey surveys to piece together a picture of where kouprey once lived. The second part, that can be mostly completed, requires collecting camera snare records from across Indochina to review which landscapes are observed and to what degree. Finally, the third phase will mix this information to see if there are any regions of plausible kouprey an environment that have not already been extensively surveyed.
Tilker’s group expects to complete the study in 2023. Following steps will depend on the outcomes, Tilker said. “If there are areas that merit further [field] queries, I am sure we could proceed because there is enough desire for the global conservation neighborhood. ”
While the kouprey had been historically recorded within open forests and grasslands, Tilker argues that with so little known of its the field of biology, other habitat sorts could conceivably assistance the species.
“Very remote, densely forested areas are the final stronghold for many large mammal species which are subject to heavy levels of exploitation, ” Tilker said. He pointed to the Cambodia-Laos boundary, where he said big areas of forest have not been surveyed as they are so remote.
The best illustration, Tilker said, is certainly Virachey National Park, which stretches throughout more than 332, 000 hectares along Cambodia’s border with Laos and Vietnam. Medical knowledge on what comes from the park is restricted, considering the landscape’s first comprehensive biodiversity study is in the process of being conducted.
In March 2021, camera traps placed in the first stages of the biodiversity survey, led by Fauna & Flora International, a wildlife conservation organisation, captured the first ever pictures of the large-antlered muntjac fawn in Cambodia.
The types was only scientifically described in 1994 and it is listed because “ vitally endangered ” by the IUCN. Pictures of a fawn shown the presence of a breeding population in Cambodia.
Pablo Sinovas, country movie director for Fauna & Flora in Cambodia, believes a lack of observation in remote areas like Virachey simply leaves conservationists unable to apply conservation methods plus interventions for rare and endangered varieties.
“The very significant discover means there is possibly a lot more to be found in the region. ” Sinovas said.
Churt Thom, a forest ranger working for the particular Ministry of Environment, adjusts the angle of a camera capture in Virachey National Park as part of a biodiversity study carried out by Fauna & Flora International. Photo: Anton L. Delgado for Southeast Asia Globe
Chantha Nasak, Fauna & Flora’s top species officer in Cambodia, has invested weeks in Virachey setting camera barriers for the biodiversity research. He hopes the outcomes will emphasise the necessity to protect large mammal habitats.
“Wildlife is a very particular part of Virachey and the kouprey is a very special part of Cambodian lifestyle, ” Nasak stated. “Unfortunately, now the people of kouprey in Cambodia is unfamiliar. But we should concentrate on protecting places, such as Virachey, so probably kouprey, but certainly other special pets can survive. ”
The snaring crisis
In the nearly 25 years Kam Phon has been a forest ranger in Virachey National Park, the only real kouprey he has run into are the ones featured on the patch associated with his Ministry associated with Environment ranger homogeneous. Photo: Anton T. Delgado for Southeast Asia Globe
Alongside the particular kouprey, several other users of the cattle family are native to Indochina, including the banteng, gaur, and crazy water buffalo. But all are now dealing with serious declines, powered largely by indiscriminate snaring. Leading conservationists fear they can vanish much like the kouprey.
Snares are simple traps using a noose designed to tug at the neck, upper body, or leg associated with any animal that walks through this. Often made with home items, like wire cables, nylon or rope, snares are usually cheap, easy to create and simple to placed in large quantities.
Sok Lolo, a community ranger within Cambodia’s Phnom Tnout-Phnom Pok Wildlife Sanctuary, which is still home to a herd of decreasing in numbers banteng, helped find out and remove 7 snares within the first few hours of the patrol in Come july 1st 2022. Back on the ranger base, the skulls of 2 banteng killed by snares are kept in the shed. Picture: Anton L. Delgado for Southeast Asia Globe
In a 2020 document , WWF estimated that 12. two million snares had been present in protected places within Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, equivalent to more than 110 snares per square km.
The banteng , a type of outrageous cattle found in spread populations from Myanmar to Bali, is probably the most at-risk species, according to Thomas Gray, who co-authored the particular WWF report and it has studied banteng populations in Cambodia.
“As banteng continue to decline because of snaring, the probability of any kouprey remaining drops to zero, ” Grey said.
Phnom Tnout-Phnom Pok Wildlife Sanctuary within Cambodia’s northern state of Preah Vihear – where most of the early 20 th century kouprey expeditions took place – houses a herd of the hundred or so banteng today. But it can be plagued by snaring.
Community rangers, like Sok Lolo and Lim Sap, spend several times a week patrolling the particular protected area, looking for snares. Within the very first two hours of a morning patrol in mid-July, the duo removed seven snares.
“If we keep eliminating all of the wildlife, the next generation of Cambodians won’t even have a clear picture of what our country’s pets look like, ” Sap said.
Politics of extinction
The kouprey was declared the national heritage image in the 1960s with the king of Cambodia, making it the Kingdom’s national animal . In 2005, a regal decree narrowed the title to ‘national mammal’.
Despite a good absence of confirmed sightings for more than half a century, the kouprey permeates Cambodian tradition. The animal’s similarity appears on public stamps and company logos. The animal’s name has been utilized to define military workouts, and is the moniker of the country’s national football team.
The animal’s ubiquity as a Cambodian cultural symbol most likely contributes to the government’s reluctance to determine its potential extinction, based on Robert Timmins, guide author of the IUCN assessment at the kouprey’s status.
“Extinction includes a stigma to it. From a political perspective, acknowledging an extinction provides occurred, particularly of the symbolic species, offers political ramifications, ” Timmins said. “Nobody likes to admit failing and it’s hard to see extinction since anything other than a failure in management plus governance. ”
A declaration of extinction also takes time to coalesce. The IUCN reports a species extinct “when there is no reasonable doubt which the last individual has died” and “exhaustive surveys” have failed to record an individual.
In the case of the particular kouprey, despite concluding that “its extinction, if not yet on us, is almost definitely sealed”, the IUCN has not yet categorised the species because extinct on the basis that potential environment was not “sufficiently selected to rule out the presence of kouprey. ”
Gray, who may be also the Reddish colored List assessment planner for IUCN’s Hard anodized cookware Wild Cattle Expert Group, doubts that will declaring the kouprey extinct would have a meaningful impact on wildlife conservation in Cambodia.
“There is no urgency in declaring it wiped out, ” he said. “If kouprey, Cambodia’s national animal, was declared extinct, might that change the conduct of the government or people in any way? Dont really know. Might this concentrate the government? I believe that is probably naive and too hopeful to say. ”
Gray forecasts that the next IUCN assessment for the kouprey, expected in the next 1 to 2 years, will still list the types as ‘critically endangered’.
Yet Tilker argues the fact that official extinction of the national animal could galvanise the government plus conservationists to safeguard the region’s other dwindling wild cattle populations.
“The tale of the kouprey is a warning sign pertaining to biodiversity, especially among wild cattle in Indochina, ” Tilker said. “If the particular species were to end up being declared extinct, this might be a major wake-up necessitate banteng and other huge mammals. ”
This tale was produced in cooperation with The Third Pole plus China Dialogue .