Shortage of rangers leads to abundance of poachers

Rangers in Cambodia’s Southern Cardamom National Park, local police officers, and residents, have found a hunting dog and two sacks filled with wild animals – mostly dead – after a search in Terk Laork village in Thmor Bang district’s Chi Phat commune.

Eduard Lefter, law enforcement manager from the Southern Cardamom Forest Protection Program (SCFPP) and Tatai Wildlife Sanctuary of Wildlife Alliance, told The Post that the group had discovered four Bengal monitor lizards – of which two died – weighing a combined 10kg.

Other animals discovered were three dead water monitors weighing 3kg combined, and one live turtle weighing 0.5kg in the sacks.

“The animals that are still alive have been released to the forest. We burnt those that are dead,” he said.

Lefter said the team had traced the two people responsible for catching the animals by following a hunting dog that was chasing a water monitor, 50 metres away from where the team had parked their vehicles.

“We attempted to go after the two suspects but they managed to escape. Local people informed us that the suspects reside in O’Andong commune, Botum Sakor District,” he said.

Koh Kong provincial environmental department director Man Phala said the Southern Cardamom National Park, Dong Peng Natural Resources Area and Tatai Wildlife Sanctuary are short of rangers who could monitor and enforce wildlife protection, thus the rampant killing and smuggling of wildlife.

He said the authorities are constantly experiencing difficulty despite receiving assistance from organisations such as Wildlife Alliance.

Phala expressed hope that the rangers would extend their acts beyond what is assigned, for instance, by educating the local people in order to mitigate illegal activities in the forest.

“The prevention of illegal hunting, trapping, trading and consumption of wildlife is not solely the responsibility of the authorities or park staff. Everyone is responsible for it. People must stop trading and consuming wild animals,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Environment recently shared a report regarding wildlife preservation efforts in the Virachey National Park in Ratanakkiri province.

It includes a number of photographs captured by trap cameras that the authorities had installed throughout the park.

Between September 26 and October 4, the cameras captured some bears, monkeys, binturongs, red muntjacs, as well as rare ones, such as the Asian elephants, tigers and gaurs.

Ministry secretary of state Neth Pheaktra said on Monday that there are 7.5 million hectares of protected areas under the ministry, with 1,260 park rangers working to protect the biodiversity there.

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Baby Asian Elephants Are Being Crippled by Snares

Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains, blanketed in emerald-green rain forest, should be a haven for endangered Asian elephants. But cameras triggered by motion sensors reveal that most of the baby elephants in the region have been injured, some fatally, by wire traps intended for other animals.


Thousands of snares litter the stomping grounds of the Cardamoms’ resident elephants. Hunters set them in order to feed the nation’s growing demand for bush meat from illegally caught wild animals, especially wild pigs and deer. The snares often inadvertently cripple or kill other animals.


Local people believed the contraptions were not harming the elephants, according to Jackson Frechette, flagship species manager for Fauna & Flora International Cambodia, a wildlife conservation organization. “They thought elephants ripped their snares off without getting hurt,” he says.


But the 51 camera traps Frechette and his team deployed beginning in 2016 told a different story. They captured photos and videos of nearly all 45 members of the region’s core elephant population. Of the seven babies less than a year old that the researchers identified, four could be seen hobbling with severe limps and wires cinching their lower legs. The team reports the findings in the July issue of the journal Oryx.


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Documentary exposes horrific elephant torture in Cambodia

It’s tough out there for Babar.

In the new documentary “Love & Bananas: An Elephant Story,” out Friday, American filmmaker Ashley Bell flies to Cambodia to discover the scary plight of Asian elephants, some of the largest animals on Earth, who are plagued by poachers and exploited in logging camps.

“A close family friend owns the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary, and I heard through them they’d been looking for elephants to rescue for about 10 years,” Bell tells The Post. “When I heard they finally had rescued them and were releasing them onto the sanctuary, it just hit me to my core. And I said ‘I’ve gotta go.’ ”

The rescue in the film takes place in Cambodia, where the team — including renowned elephant expert Lek Chailert — attempt to save a 70-year-old animal named Noi Na.

Captive elephants like Noi Na are forced to endure a little-known torture called “The Crush Box,” in which humans beat them into submission for days. Noi Na’s experience left her partially blind.

Chailert’s methods for rehabilitating hurt elephants are tender and maternal, and many of the animals look to her as a mom. Bell, at first, had doubts.

“[Chailert] treats them like humans. She treats them with dignity and respect, and she gives them love. I’m a pretty skeptical person, so I was like, ‘Sure, Lek,’ ” Bell says. “But I saw it with my own eyes. To see the change in Noi Na’s behavior as soon as the chains are taken off and she’s made to feel comfortable in Lek’s sanctuary. She immediately began eating, rubbing up against walls, covering herself with dirt and scratching her butt.” All good signs.

Although it can be hard to witness the suffering of captive elephants, at the sanctuary, Bell says, there was plenty of cuteness overload.

“There are some baby elephants in the park. To see them wake up and just rush [out] … and fling themselves onto a mud pit,” she says, “was quite possibly the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”


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Documentary exposes horrific elephant torture in Cambodia

It’s tough out there for Babar.

In the new documentary “Love & Bananas: An Elephant Story,” out Friday, American filmmaker Ashley Bell flies to Cambodia to discover the scary plight of Asian elephants, some of the largest animals on Earth, who are plagued by poachers and exploited in logging camps.

“A close family friend owns the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary, and I heard through them they’d been looking for elephants to rescue for about 10 years,” Bell tells The Post. “When I heard they finally had rescued them and were releasing them onto the sanctuary, it just hit me to my core. And I said ‘I’ve gotta go.’ ”

The rescue in the film takes place in Cambodia, where the team — including renowned elephant expert Lek Chailert — attempt to save a 70-year-old animal named Noi Na.

Captive elephants like Noi Na are forced to endure a little-known torture called “The Crush Box,” in which humans beat them into submission for days. Noi Na’s experience left her partially blind.

Chailert’s methods for rehabilitating hurt elephants are tender and maternal, and many of the animals look to her as a mom. Bell, at first, had doubts.

“[Chailert] treats them like humans. She treats them with dignity and respect, and she gives them love. I’m a pretty skeptical person, so I was like, ‘Sure, Lek,’ ” Bell says. “But I saw it with my own eyes. To see the change in Noi Na’s behavior as soon as the chains are taken off and she’s made to feel comfortable in Lek’s sanctuary. She immediately began eating, rubbing up against walls, covering herself with dirt and scratching her butt.” All good signs.

Although it can be hard to witness the suffering of captive elephants, at the sanctuary, Bell says, there was plenty of cuteness overload.

“There are some baby elephants in the park. To see them wake up and just rush [out] … and fling themselves onto a mud pit,” she says, “was quite possibly the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

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Cambodia rescues 11 endangered elephants

Phnom Penh, March 25 (IANS) At least 11 endangered Asian elephants were rescued by Cambodian villagers from a muddy bomb crater on Saturday, an official said.

The elephants, including three youngsters, were trapped in a three-metre deep bomb crater inside the Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary in Mondolkiri province on Friday, Xinhua news agency reported.

Villagers reported to the conservationists about the incident, said Keo Sopheak, Director of the Environment Department.

"We dug away at the side of the crater, and created a path to enable the wild elephants to climb free," Sopheak said.

He said no elephant was injured in the incident, and they were released into the jungle.

Cambodia is home to over 500 wild elephants, according to the Forestry Administration.

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Elephant skeleton to go on display in Phnom Penh

The skeleton of a 1-year-old Asian elephant killed by a snare last year in Mondulkiri’s Keo Seima Wildlife Seima Sanctuary is being reassembled to go on display this weekend at Koh Pich Convention and Exhibition Center in Phnom Penh.

The exhibition, organised by the Ministry of Environment and on display on Friday and Saturday, aims to educate the public about protecting wildlife and biodiversity.

Tin Ponlok, secretary-general at the General Secretariat of the National Council for Sustainable Development at the ministry, said yesterday the exhibition was especially targeting young people.

“It is the promotion of knowledge to youth, so they can join to protect and preserve the animals and biodiversity,” he said.

Meng Monireak, director of Ministry of Environment’s Biodiversity Protection Department, said about 90 percent of the skeleton had already been assembled.

The elephant was found dead with injuries from a snare last year inside the wildlife sanctuary. It was buried before being exhumed by the Environment Ministry and brought to Phnom Penh.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates the population of Asian elephants in Cambodia ranges from 250 to 600.

At least six Asian elephants were found dead between 2013 and 2016 in Mondulkiri, including the 1-year-old.

The skeleton of an Indochinese silvered langur, an endangered monkey species, will also be on display this weekend.

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A Whole Family Of Elephants And Their Babies Were Trapped In The Mud For Hours

At the end of March, an incredible rescue mission took place in the sanctuary of Keo Seima Wildlife in Cambodia. An entire family of Asian elephants found themselves suddenly trapped in a huge dam of mud, reports The Dodo.

The huge hole, normally used by local farmers to store water, had been transformed into a sticky, muddy pool which could have taken the lives of this elephant family as they were unable to get out.

As soon as the farmers found the animals in the mud trap, they contacted the Minister of Environmental Affairs, who then contacted the associations, Elephant Livelihood Initiative Environment (ELIE), and Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Cambodia. The volunteers rushed to the scene and found the family completely exhausted and in grave danger.

 They gave food and water to the three adult and eight baby elephants to help them regain their strength before commencing the rescue mission. They started to water the elephants down to refresh them, and also to thin out the thick, sticky mud.

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Villagers rescue 11 elephants in Cambodia

Farmers in Cambodia found 11 Asian elephants trapped in a mud hole — an old bomb crater from the Vietnam War that the farmers had enlarged to store water.

The 10-foot walls in the hole in Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary were too high for the elephants to scale and, as the mud dried, it became increasingly more difficult for the herd to escape.

The farmers contacted the Department of the Environment, and employees there reached out to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Elephant Livelihood Initiative Environment (ELIE) for help.

Villagers worked with the team to help bring food and water to the elephants while a ramp was built and lowered into the hole.

"This involved a massive effort of digging a ramp and escape channel, loading in branches and logs and roughage and cooling them down with a big hose and to also loosen the mud around them, before they finally moved toward the exit," Jemma Bullock of ELIE wrote on Facebook.

"Finally ... one after the other they stormed out of there. However more drama struck when one little baby was left behind. So the rescue mission launched back into action. As a huge storm rolled in, we attempted to rope the baby ele to safety. After many attempts and some heart stopping moments, the little gal finally made it out and ran off to the safety of the forest and the herd!"

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