Around 70 hog deer (Axis porcinus) have been observed, roaming the remaining tall grassland habitat of the Mekong terrestrial landscape in Kratie province, said the Ministry of Environment in a news release yesterday.

This exciting result was revealed last week through photographic evidence from camera trap and thermal drone surveys conducted by the wildlife researchers of Kratie Provincial Department of Environment and WWF, with the assistance from the Biodiversity Inventory for Conservation (BINCO) NPO team and Thermal DRONES GmbH, as well as from the local community and authority, in a wildlife sanctuary under the management of the Ministry of Environment with WWF support, it pointed out.

The survey also showed the presence of multiple fawns, indicating a reproduction is taking place in the area, continued the news release, stressing that the Ministry of Environment and WWF are preparing the hog deer population status report, which is due to be released soon.

The hog deer is listed as globally endangered on the IUCN Red List and was once thought to be extinct in Cambodia, until its rediscovery in 2006 in Kratie.

However, the species is threatened by habitat loss, poaching and snaring crisis, fuelled by the illegal wildlife trade. To save the hog deer and many other globally significant wildlife species in Cambodia from poaching and snaring, the Zero-Snaring in Cambodia’s protected areas campaign was launched in early March 2022 with the goal to eliminate all types of snaring and end the illegal wildlife trade.

Source: Agency Kampuchea Press