#Cambodia - Royal Turtles return to the wild

The Royal Turtle, Cambodia’s National Reptile – per Royal Decree, is a critically endangered species.  A turn of twenty of them was released into Sre Ambel River in Preah Sihanouk Province on Friday, April 26 by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Fisheries Administration.

The turtles’ release was made possible by the new EU-funded Counter Wildlife Trafficking Project, which is discharged by the WCS in partnership with the Wildlife Alliance, the Cambodian Rural Development Team and the Fisheries Administration.

The WCS commented, “This is the third Royal Turtle release since 2015, making a total of 66 turtles. Each turtle released today is 12 years old and weighs between 10 and 15 kilograms. They were cared for at the Koh Kong Reptile Conservation Centre after they hatched on the [banks of] Sre Ambel River.”

Eng Cheasan, Director General of the Fisheries Administration, led the action, which was attended by delegates from the EU, including George Edgar, the EU’s ambassador to Cambodia, and representatives from various government departments, local authorities, monks, villagers, teachers and students.

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Source - Khmer Times

Indonesia, Sulawesi - Life on the wild side

The Indonesia island of Sulawesi is not only a marine paradise, but also home to the critically endangered black crested macaque

THE CHUGGING of the converted fishing boat stops and the world is silent. The palm tree-lined coast of the Indonesian island is hundreds of metres away.

Although the reef edge is near, the water where we hover is 100m deep. The captain gestures to my family to jump off the boat. I wonder if this is right.

“What, here?” I ask. “Yes here, Turtle City,” he grins.

My trusting four-year-old daughter turns her wide eyes up to me. I flash her a smile and, together, we plunge into the bottomless blue.

Immediately, my sons, aged 11 and eight, are squealing through their snorkels.

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 Right below us swims a 2m-long green turtle. Sunlight bounces off the ancient creature’s shell in every direction. The behemoth seems to fly as her front flippers haul her through the water. She is unafraid and, soon, we cannot keep pace and watch her glide into infinity.

The clarity of the water is breathtaking and I see several more turtles – to the left, right and far below.

The island of Sulawesi lies 600km north-east of Bali. I have flown from Singapore to Manado in Northern Sulawesi, intending to show my children the wild highlights of this zone.

Over the next nine days, we will be immersed in the underwater paradise of Bunaken Island and encounter monkeys in the Tangkoko Batuangus Nature Reserve.

Emerging from the airport, we take a 40-minute drive to Manado Port, the gateway to Bunaken and other islands.

I am eager for our adventure to begin but, at the port, I notice with great dismay that the water is bobbing with plastic. I find it astonishing that this polluted harbour is the gateway to a natural paradise.

 

 

The wooden boat we will take to Bunaken Island is filled with bags of rice, crates of vegetables, beer, crew and, lastly, my family. Once underway, the garbage of the port lessens and my eyes are soothed by mountainous, green views of the mainland.

We are in one of the most diverse coral reef ecosystems in the world, with approximately 2,000 species of tropical fish and 390 types of corals so far recorded from the area. There are still infringements of the fishing rules here, but on the whole, the reef is pristine.

On my first snorkel from the beach, I encounter a green turtle followed by a skittish whitetip reef shark. Reef fish of orange, blue and pink cloud my vision and it feels like I am in an aquarium dream.

I am inspired to dust off my dive certification and go out with a scuba tank.

The in-house divemaster is a local from Bunaken and a man of few words. However, under the water, he conducts my refresher course with confidence, then proudly leads me through his shimmering backyard.

Gently parting some rubbery soft coral, he shows me the tiny, delicate orangutan crab. No bigger than the nail on my pinky, its orange “fur” sways with the current.

A metallic “tap, tap” on the divemaster’s tank prompts me to look straight down.

About 15m below me, a 2m-long blue and green Napoleon wrasse darts upwards and flashes back down, followed by the sleek and silvery body of a shark.

The two dance aggressively and, as I watch, I am astonished to see a 1m-long giant trevally glide over to check out the action.

Dolphins accompany my boat as I bid farewell to Bunaken Island and, when they finally slide away into the glassy expanses, I turn my thoughts to the wild animals of the land.

Sulawesi and the neighbouring island of Borneo have been separated by deep water for more than 50 million years. An imaginary line was drawn between the two in 1859 by naturalist Alfred Wallace and is thus named the Wallace Line.

The animals on either side of the line are quite distinct, with only a few successfully crossing the line. Many native animals unique to Northern Sulawesi are still found in the forests and these are only a two-hour drive from Manado.

Emerging from my mosquito net at 4am the next morning, I hope it is worth the effort.

My torch lights the track as I follow our guide deep into the forest.

Shushing excited kids, I am surprised to hear leaves rustling and see shadowy figures up ahead.

A troupe of macaques is travelling in the same direction as us and, as the sunrise starts to penetrate the forest, they are suddenly, eerily, all around us.

The black crested macaque is one of 127 species of mammals found in Tangkoko Batuangus Nature Reserve. Still hunted for bush meat and threatened by deforestation, the monkey is critically endangered and lives only in Northern Sulawesi.

There are about 40 macaques in the group we are with, all with a distinctive black mohawk style.

Males squabble, chase and wrestle, showing off to females. Mothers piggy-back their babies and munch on bugs they pull from one another’s fur. Rowdy adolescents jump from branch to vine before scampering across the forest floor in play.

I return later that night for a second guided walk. This time, I am seeking the world’s smallest monkey – the tarsier.

Creeping through the dark jungle, I am quickly rewarded by our guides’ local knowledge.
The tiny furball is perched on a branch, having emerged from its daytime refuge.
It is impossibly cute, with enormous eyes, and I laugh as my daughter whispers: “Mum, can we get a tarsier?”

Source - TheNation

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Laos - Largest Forest in Xayaboury to be Opened as Tourist Attraction

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 Hoping to draw more people to experience its natural beauty and establish its profile as a tourist destination, Xayaboury Province is opening up its largest forest as one of its visitor attractions.
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An official has confirmed that provincial authorities surveyed the forest in Phieng District, which is 80 km from the provincial capital. After surveying the trees and the surrounding area, provincial authorities considered various ways  on how they could develop the forest into a tourist attraction and open it up to the public.
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The director of the province’s Information, Culture and Tourism Department, Mr Chanthi Simanichan, has stated that the biggest trees in Phieng district are maitaekha (Sindora cochinchinensis) and can grow up to an impressive 15 metres in width and more than 10 metres in height. The maitaekha are hundreds of years old and are highly valued for their solid wood.
The area will be of interest to those with an interest in nature and those who can appreciate the preservation of the towering trees surrounding them . There is potential for a variety of outdoor activities for visitors who enjoy the great outdoors, as well as for individuals wanting to study tree species in Laos.
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 Apart from observing the massive trees and the serenity of nature, there are fascinating caves waiting to be explored, including the beautiful Lobphai Cave.
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There are many officially designated tourist sites in Xayaboury Province but due poor road access, reaching tourist sites is difficult and dangerous, particularly during the wet season.
However, provincial authorities plan to build a road to the forest in an effort to bring development to impoverished Phieng District. Mr Chanthi stressed that it is essential to build roads to make more of the sites accessible.
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Due to poor road conditions, Mr Chanti urges anyone who is looking to visit the forest to plan ahead and contact the Phieng District Information, Culture and Tourism Office to find out current road hazards.
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“The provincial authorities plan to build a dirt road to the forest because there is no road access at present,” Mr Chanthi has stated. “Construction will start this year and then district authorities will officially open the forest area as a new tourist site. Locals and foreigners can visit at any time, but don’t forget to contact the Phieng district Information, Culture and Tourism Office so that officials can provide help”.
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SOURCE - Laotianpost

The Helmeted Hornbill is still thriving in Thailand's south

The Helmeted Hornbill is still thriving in Thailand's south

Almost extinct in Indonesia and Malaysia, the Helmeted Hornbill is still thriving in Thailand's south, but for how long?

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 THE ICONIC helmeted hornbill (rhinoplax vigil), one of the most gigantic and spectacular of Asia's 30 species of hornbills, is in grave danger of extinction according to BirdLife International and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) who upgraded its threat status to critically endangered last November.
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All hornbills are charismatic, mainly frugivorous (fruit-eating) forest birds of tropical forests, who take their name from the large ornamental casques on their bills, which differ in size and shape among species. The helmeted hornbill (known as Nok Chon Hin in Thai) is special, though, because unlike the other hornbills, the casque is not hollow but solid and bony.
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Casques of the helmeted hornbill have long been sought after by Chinese craftsmen, who carve this so-called "hornbill ivory" or "red ivory" into elaborate ornaments and snuff-boxes. Even as long as 2,000 years ago native peoples of Borneo were already fashioning helmeted hornbill casques into ear-pendants and toggles. But Japan and China are the major consumers of helmeted hornbills casques, demand for which has suddenly and inexplicably escalated, threatening the future of this unique species.

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 "In 2013 about 500 adult helmeted hornbills were killed each month, or some 6,000 birds in one year, and that was only in West Kalimantan," laments Yokyok Hadiprakarsa of the Indonesian Hornbill Conservation Society.
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According to Hadiprakarsa, who also works with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in West Kalimantan, and who has interviewed many villagers, foresters and officials, only 1,111 helmeted hornbill heads were confiscated by the Indonesian authorities between 2012-2014, and eight Chinese traders, along with two Indonesian citizens, arrested.
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The helmeted hornbill heads were being smuggled to major ports in Sumatra, Java and onwards to Hong Kong and Taiwan.
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Such a high level of exploitation is clearly unsustainable and, if left unchecked, will quickly drive remaining helmeted hornbill populations to extinction.
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Dr Nigel J Collar of BirdLife International is an expert on these larger hornbills, noting that they have specific nesting requirements, choosing the largest living trees with nest holes topped with a perch for the male to use while provisioning the female.
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During the breeding cycle, the female remains incarcerated in the nest cavity for 160 days, when both she and the nestling are dependent solely on food delivered by the male. Hunting during the breeding season therefore has an especially severe impact, causing the death of the nestling and compromising the survival of the female too.
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Rates of forest loss in the Sundaic lowlands of Malaysia and Indonesia remain extremely high, owing partly to the escalation of illegal logging and conversion of forest land to rubber and oil-palm. Such habitat loss has already caused a massive reduction in hornbill numbers. Even inside protected areas, the best remaining stands of valuable timber may be targeted for logging.
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Forest fires have also had a damaging effect.The helmeted hornbill has apparently almost disappeared from habitats where it was previously abundant in Sumatra, Indonesia, and is equally threatened in both the Indonesian and Malaysian parts of Borneo. It is still widespread in protected areas in Thailand's southern provinces, which together support six of the country's 13 species including the helmeted hornbill.
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But even here populations of the helmeted hornbill are small and fragmented as so little of their ancestral forest habitat remains as national park and wildlife sanctuary, and all hornbills remain vulnerable to hunting, and theft of chicks for the illegal pet trade.
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The Hornbill Research Foundation of Mahidol University, Thailand, led by Prof Pilai Poonswad and her team, has done much to raise the profile of hornbills in this country, conducting long-term term ecological studies
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while monitoring populations of all hornbills in Thailand since 1978.
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The foundation has studied the breeding ecology of the helmeted hornbill at Budo-Sungai Padi National Park and worked with villagers in the provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat to organise a Hornbill Family Adoption Programme, under which for US$150 (Bt5,250) per year the same villagers who formerly collected hornbill chicks are employed instead as nest-guardians.
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Records sent to Bird Conservation Society of Thailand (BCST), the Thai partner of BirdLife International, by birdwatchers over the past few decades show that helmeted hornbills survive today only in the largest areas already protected as National Parks or Wildlife Sanctuaries.
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It will take all the resources of the government's Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plants Conservation (DNP) to keep these safe from poachers. A Helmeted Hornbill Task Force established through international cooperation among SE Asian BirdLife Partners - BCST-Birdlife Thailand; the Biodiversity and Nature Conservation Association of Myanmar; the Malaysian Nature Society, Nature Society (Singapore) and Burung Indonesia - to alert, and provide technical support for, government agencies in their respective countries could help coordinate action to safeguard helmeted hornbill.
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Because of its relatively advanced capacity and knowledge, and good public awareness, Thailand is perhaps well placed to lead the way with its own a national action plan for the helmeted hornbill. The key government agencies, besides DNP, include the Customs Department, the Thai secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) and the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning (Onep).
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With timely and appropriate action, there is every hope that Thai populations of the helmeted hornbill in southern Thailand will not follow the Gurneys Pitta into extinction, but will be sustained, and even recover, as have populations of some other endangered vertebrates, such as gaur and banteng in a few, favoured protected areas of the western forest complex.
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A DISAPPEARING FOREST GIANT
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- The Helmeted hornbill is among the largest of Asian hornbills, about 110-120 cm long with a wingspan up to 2 metres Its plumage is patterned blackish- brown and white, with elongate white central tail feathers bearing a black band. The skin of the bare neck is red in the male, and pale turquoise in the female Its distinctive high red casque, yellow at the front and weighing about 300g, is the "helmet" of the common name.
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- Helmeted hornbills are confined to lowland forests, from southern Myanmar, southern Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Indonesia - the Sunda Region. They inhabit mature evergreen lowland forest, and though recorded up to 1,500 metres above sea level, are mostly confined to lower elevations.
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- The call of helmeted hornbill is utterly unique -once heard never forgotten. It is a series of loud, intermittent barbet-like hoots, sometimes double-toned and over two dozen in number, which gradually accelerates to culminate in a cackle reminiscent of laughter. Its unique casque is used in rarely seen aerial jousts in which two male birds fly from a treetop in opposite directions, circle round and swoop at each other, cracking their casques together in mid-air in a spectacular contest for supremacy.
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- Hornbills are important bio-indicators of good quality forest and, indeed, help maintain plant diversity and forest cover through their role as seed dispersers. They are the largest fruit-eating birds in the forest canopy, consuming the fruits of more than 200 tree species, including not only figs but lipid-rich fruits, regurgitating and defecating their seeds far and wide, at great distances from the parent tree. Their role in maintaining the forest ecosystem is so immense that they are regarded as farmers of the forest and one hornbill may plant more than 500,000 trees in its lifetime. They are also predators of small animals including squirrels, snakes, and other birds including even the chicks of their own or other hornbill species, and can live more than 30 years.

 

Source: The Nation 

 

#Cambodia, More crocs needed to save species

Cambodia’s most ancient reptile has become its most threatened in recent decades.

Once common throughout Indochina, the Siamese crocodile was declared extinct in the wild in 1992 before a few were discovered in the Cardamom Mountains 15 years ago.

With the population still tiny, the species will not survive for long without human help, say scientists.  

“The crocodile’s numbers are now so low that the species cannot recover without help. Very few nests are produced in the wild,” said Dr Jackson Frechette of Fauna and Flora International (FFI), whose Cambodian Crocodile Preservation Programme (CCCP) is a regional leader in captive breeding.

However, help might be on the way with the announcement that the Detroit Zoo is preparing to send 10 Siamese crocodile hatchlings to Cambodia for release into the wild.

“Our conservation efforts have led not only to the successful breeding of Siamese crocodiles but to the addition of zoo-born crocodiles to a critically small wild population – which hopefully will help save the species from extinction,” Scott Carter, chief life sciences officer at the Detroit Zoological Society, was quoted as saying in a statement.

The hatchlings were sent in July to the St Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park in Florida and were being fostered by an adult pair of Siamese crocodiles in preparation for release, the statement says.

At about two metres long for adults, the Siamese crocodile is relatively small and docile – roughly half the size of a typical adult male saltwater croc – and its diet consists of fish and snakes.

While other populations have since been discovered in neighbouring countries, the approximately 250 crocs in Cambodia represent up to 80 per cent of surviving individuals.

The overall amount of crocodiles in the region is on the upswing thanks to farming – descendants of purebred Siamese crocodiles number in the hundreds of thousands at farms throughout Southeast Asia.

However, most of the animals have been hybridised with saltwater and Cuban crocodiles.

Charlie Manolis, chief scientist at Wildlife Management International, said even 10 new animals in the wild could make a significant impact given the limited and possibly contaminated gene pool in the wild.

“In the overall scheme of things, the small number that could potentially go from Detroit Zoo to the wild in Cambodia may not sound like much.

But they could help genetic diversity, and it is no doubt important for zoos to be involved in in-situ programs in the countries where these species exist,” he said.  

FFI’s current conservation projects includes removing eggs from the wild to be incubated in a hatchery before being released. Croclets have also been bred at the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Centre.

Since 2011, more than 50 animals bred in Cambodia have been released by FFI.

Frechette also said he was unaware of any plans to bring crocodiles in from abroad and no officials contacted this week at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries were aware of Detroit Zoo’s plan.

“As we understand, there are no definitive plans to bring zoo-bred Siamese crocodiles from overseas to Cambodia: it is only a possibility, and would not happen without prior approval from the Royal Government of Cambodia,” Frechette said.

Sourse: PhnomPehnPost 

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