Conservation in Cambodia: documenting species to help create new protected areas.
In 2017, researchers working with World Widlife Fund (WWF) captured photos of the one of the world’s rarest deer species, the southeast Asian Hog Deer (Axis porcinus annamiticus), along the Mekong River in Kratie province, Cambodia. In order to establish a sanctuary to protect these deer, WWF Cambodia teamed up with Merlijn Jocque at Biodiversity Inventory for Conservation (BINCO) to create the Kdan-Mekong Expedition. The expedition’s goals were to survey the habitats where the deer had been sighted, estimate the deer’s population, and inventory the reptiles, birds, insects, and other mammals that also lived in the area. Erik Sandvig (University of Oxford) and I joined the team to lead the bird surveys, and documented 219 species of birds during our three weeks in the field. The findings from the Kdan-Mekong Expedision helped WWF Cambodia establish the new Preak Prasab and Sambour Wildlife Sanctuaries—an outcome that will hopefully help to ensure that the hog deer along the Mekong continue to survive for years to come!
Check out the links below to learn more about this project!
Learn more..
Our work in Cambodia was organized and funded by BINCO and World Wildlife Fund Cambodia.
BINCO’s page about the Kdan-Mekong project: https://binco.eu/projects/cambodia/
Photographer Mac Stone accompanied the expedition and took some incredible photos of our work in the field: https://www.macstonephoto.com/
Mittermeier, J.C., Sandvig, E.M., and M. Jocque. 2020. Surveys along the Mekong River, northern Kratie province, Cambodia, indicate a decade of declines in populations of threatened bird species. Birding Asia 32: 80-89.
Erik’s blog post about our bird findings in Cambodia: https://binco.eu/international-projects/declining-populations-of-threatened-bird-species-along-the-mekong-river-cambodia/
