A wildlife research team comprised of experts from the Ministry of Environment, Mondulkiri provincial environment department and World Wide Fund for Nature Cambodia (WWF-Cambodia) showed the results of their April camera traps in the forests of Cambodia’s eastern plains.
The cameras captured images of a female Indochinese leopard and ungulates, including wild pig, muntjac, and the rare sambar deer, as well as birds and macaques.
The environment ministry said the team was excited to reveal their findings – especially the rare Indochinese leopard, which is listed as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. Indochinese leopard has disappeared from almost all of its former range across Southeast Asia.
“Cambodia’s eastern plains remain the last refuge for very few of its last known population,” the ministry in a social media post on April 28.
The ministry added that this extremely rare apex predator is threatened with extinction by the snaring crisis, which is fuelled by the illegal wildlife trade. The leopard could face the same fate as the already extinct Indochinese tiger. The small population which remains in Cambodia is vulnerable to being caught by snares hidden in the forest waiting to ambush both the carnivore and its prey indiscriminately.
“In order to address this crisis, in early March key actors from several ministries and international conservation organisations launched the Zero-Snaring in Cambodia’s protected areas campaign. They collectively committed to ending both the snaring crisis and the illegal wildlife trade, for the future of Cambodia’s people and wildlife,” the ministry said.
Mondulkiri provincial environment department director Keo Sopheak said on April 28 that although the zero-snaring campaign has been going on for some time, the snares still exist and rangers continue to find and remove them. In addition, environmental officials and local authorities had conducted education programmes to raise awareness among the public – especially those living near to forest and wildlife conservation areas – so they would understand why ending the use of snares was necessary.
“We want to spread the word to people around the protected areas about the damage snares are doing to our wildlife. They trap animals indiscriminately, ranging from the smallest ones to the elephants,” he said.