Kampuchean wildlife — survival against the odds

Abstract

The continuing war in Kampuchea has made it difficult for zoologists to assess the status of endangered species in the remoter parts of the country. Two of the world's rarest mammals, the kouprey and the Javan rhinoceros, may still survive there. The author visited the area in April 1986 and, in interviews with people in two refugee camps on the Thai border, gained the impression that the effects of the war on wildlife were not as drastic as had been expected.

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Kampuchean
wildlife—
survival
against
the
odds
Chris Thouless
The
continuing
war in
Kampuchea
has
made
it
difficult
for
zoologists
to
assess
the
status
of
endangered
species
in the
remoter parts
of the
country.
Two of the
world's rarest mammals,
the
kouprey
and the
Javan rhinoceros,
may
still survive there.
The
author visited
the
area
in
April
1986 and,
in
interviews with people
in two
refugee
camps
on the
Thai border, gained
the
impression
that
the
effects
of the war on
wildlife
were
not as
drastic
as had
been expected.
There
has
been
little
recent
information
on the
status
of
wildlife
in
Kampuchea.
Wars,
civil
unrest
and
hostile governments have made
it
impossible
for
foreigners
to
visit
much
of the
country,
and the
majority
of
educated
Khmers
have
either
been
killed
or
escaped
to
other countries.
The war in
Kampuchea
is
still
continuing.
The
capital,
Phnom
Phen,
and the
more populous
parts
of the
country
are
controlled
by
160,000-
180,000
Vietnamese troops
with
50,000
of
their
Democratic Kampuchean
allies.
Their opponents
are
guerrillas
loyal
to the
UN-recognized govern-
ment
based
on the
border with Thailand. This
is a
coalition
between
the
Khmer
Rouge,
the
Kam-
puchean People's National Liberation Front
(KPNLF)
and
supporters
of
Prince Sihanouk.
During
the wet
season about
40,000
of
their
soldiers
operate
mainly
in the
north
and
west
of
the
country;
in the dry
season
the
Vietnamese
push
up to the
Thai border
and
have attacked
the
refugee
camps,
which
hold about
240,000
Khmer
civilians.
Reports
on the
status
of
endangered
species
that
were
previously
resident
in
Kampuchea have
tended
to be
rather pessimistic about
their
chances
of
survival.
It
has
been assumed,
in
par-
ticular,
that populations
of
large game
will
have
been severely reduced because
of the
breakdown
of
nature reserves,
a
shortage
of
food
and the
presence
of
large numbers
of
armed men.
Kampuchean
wildlife
Visits
to
remote parts
of
Kampuchea
by
zoologists
are not
recommended because
of the
profusion
of
land-mines
and a
local tendency
to
assume that
any
stray white
man
works
for the CIA or the
KGB,
and,
as
such,
is in
season. However, there
is
considerable
potential
for
collecting information
from
Khmers
on the
Thai border, since
many
have recently arrived
as
refugees
or
have
returned
from
fighting.
I
conducted interviews
with
residents
of two
refugee
camps, Site
2
(KPNLF)
and
Site
8
(Khmer
Rouge),
for two
days
in
April
1986,
with
the
help
of
interpreters
who
were
fluent
in
both
Khmer
and
English,
and
were
familiar
with
the
animals
that
I was
asking about. Subjects
for
inter-
viewing
were chosen
by
asking camp authorities
to
locate residents
who had a
reputation
as
hunters.
Others came
of
their
own
accord, having
heard that
we
were interested
in
animals
that
they
had
seen.
Interviews
were conducted
with
the aid
of
photographs, drawings
and
posters
of
South
East Asian
wildlife.
The
observations described below
include
only
instances where
my
informants
had
seen
the
animal
personally.
In
order
to
check
the
validity
of
the
records
I
asked
for
details
of the
animals'
behaviour
and
what
kind
of
habitat they
had
been
in;
I
also asked
how
observers managed
to
dis-
tinguish
the
species concerned
from
related ones.
In
general,
I was
impressed
by the
reliability
of the
223

Above: Kouprey
(drawing
by
Bruce Pearson),
Below:
Khmer
Rouge
refugee
camp
showing
the
rugged country
of the
border area (Chris Thou/ess).
224
Oryx
Vol
21
No
4,
October
1987

Khmers.
They were happy
to
admit
if
they
had
not
seen
an
animal
or
could
not
distinguish
between
two
species.
For
example,
1
could
not get
information
on
Temminck's
cat
because
the
same
Khmer
word
was
used
for all
small cats,
and the
various
species
were
not
separated.
The
kouprey
The
kouprey
Bos
sauveli
is one of the
rarest
and
least known large mammals
in the
world.
It is a
kind
of
wild
cattle, characterized
by a
pendulous
dewlap
and
massive horns
with
distinctive
frayed
tips.
The
kouprey
was first
described
in
1937
and
even then
was
quite rare, being
confined
to the
remote
and
inaccessible northern part
of
Kam-
puchea
and
neighbouring
areas
of
Vietnam
and
Laos.
Its
population
was
then believed
to
number
a few
thousand but,
as a
result
of
shooting
and
disturbance,
population
estimates
had
dropped
to
fewer than
100 by
1970,
after
which
Kam-
puchea became
a
battleground
and no
further
information
emerged.
At one
time
it was
believed
that there
was
little
chance
of any
kouprey having
survived,
but in
1982
some
were reported
by
villagers just
on the
Thai side
of the
border.
An
expedition
was
mounted
with
the
intention
of
capturing
some
for
captive breeding; however,
while
tracks were
found,
no
kouprey were seen
(IUCN,
1983).
More recently,
MacKinnon
(1986b)
has
established
that
small
numbers
of
kouprey survive
in
Laos
and
Vietnam.
All
the
Khmers
I
spoke
to
were certain that there
still
were kouprey
in
Kampuchea,
and
several
people
had
actually
seen
them. Most
of
these
observations
came
from
the
years
1975-79
(Figure
1).
This
was
because many
of the
refu-
gees
had
left
Kampuchea
in
1979
at the
time
of
the
Vietnamese invasion
and
because,
in
1975,
the
Khmer Rouge leadership
had
forced many
people
to go and
live
in
sparsely inhabited forest
regions.
Two of
these
records
are
from
Siem
Reap Province, which
is to the
west
of the
sup-
posed
range
of the
kouprey (Sauvel,
1949).
Although
it is
possible that groups have wandered
to new
areas
as a
result
of
disturbance
from
the
fighting,
it
seems
more
likely
that
the
lack
of
pre-
vious observations
from
this area
is
because
it was
one of the
least populated
areas
of the
country.
One man we
spoke
to
said that
while
he had
been
Kampuchean
wildlife
Site
VIETNAM
Figure
1.
Observations
of
kouprey.
Line
encloses
former
range.
Dates
of
records
are as
follows:
(1)
1975-9;
(2)
1975-9;
(3)
1977;
(4)
1983;
(5)
1983-4.
a
labourer
for the
Khmer Rouge
in
Siem Reap
he
had
taken part
in
kouprey hunts.
These
involved
about
30 men
with
half
that number
of
guns.
They
had
killed
six
kouprey over
a
three-year
period
from
a
local population
of
about
30. Not
entirely surprisingly, numbers were lower
and the
animals were more
difficult
to
find
at the end of
this
time.
The
most
recent sightings
of
kouprey were made
in
1984
in
Kampong
Sralao
district. This area
used
to be a
kouprey reserve. Apparently,
in
this
region villagers
send
their cows into
the
forest
in
the
hope
that they
will
be
fertilized
by
kouprey
bulls.
This
is
interesting
for two
reasons:
firstly,
it is
thought that kouprey
may be
resistant
to rinder-
pest
and
hence
may
confer
resistance
to the
off-
spring
of
domestic stock that they
breed
with;
secondly,
it has
been
suggested that kouprey
are
the
ancestors
of
modem brahmin cattle
(Pfeffer
and
Kim-San,
1967).
Although this theory
is
unlikely
to be
completely true, since genetic
analysis shows relationships between brahmins
and
other
domestic breeds, there
may
have been
interbreeding
in the
past giving
rise to
brahmin
features such
as the
dewlap. This kind
of
inter-
breeding between wild
and
domestic stocks
has
occurred
in
other places.
For
instance,
in
Java
wild
banteng
Bos
javanicus
bulls
are
encouraged
225

to
mate
with local cattle, producing hardy hybrids
able
to
cope
with
a low
quality
diet.
It
may
seem surprising that people were
so
familiar
with
a
rare
and
elusive
animal
that
does
not
look very
different
from
other wild cattle.
In
fact,
confusion
is
made possible
by the
fact
that
'kouprey'
in
Khmer
means
literally
'forest
cattle',
and
that
the
word
can be
used
in
this sense
as
well
as the
specific
one. Part
of the
reason
why
every-
one
knew about kouprey
was
because
in the
early
1960s
Prince Sihanouk made
it the
Cambodian
national
animal
and
declared several sanctuaries
specifically
for its
conservation. Koupreys were
illustrated
and
described
in
primary school text-
books
that were being used
in the
Khmer
Rouge
camp.
Wharton
(1968)
has
also suggested that
there
has
been
a
long association between
kouprey
and man in
northern Kampuchea since
this
species
may be
dependent
on the
fire-climax
habitats produced
by
slash-and-burn
cultivation.
Javan
rhino
The
Javan,
or
Asian one-horned,
rhino
Rhinoceros
sondaicus
was
once
widely
distri-
buted throughout South East
Asia.
Now
almost
the
entire world population (about
50)
is
confined
to a
small part
of
Java
and
there have been
no
confirmed
sightings elsewhere
for
many years.
However, there have been
a
number
of
reports
suggesting
that they
do
still
survive
in
remote
parts
of the
area.
McNeely
and
Laurie (1977)
received
reports
of
their
existence
in the
Tenas-
serim
range
in
Thailand. Villagers
in
southern
Laos
had
seen Javan rhino
on a
number
of
occasions
(Neese,
1976).
A
number
of
Khmer refugees
had
seen rhinos,
mostly
in the
remote northern areas
(Figure
2). In
most
cases
these were single sightings.
It was
evidently quite
an
event
to see a
rhino.
One old
hunter
said that
he had
seen only
one in his
life,
in
the
1950s.
In two
areas
there
had
been
a
number
of
sightings over
a
period
of
time.
A
hunter
from
Preah Vihear thought that there
had
been about
10
individuals
in the
area
in the
early years
of
this
decade,
but
these
had
been very
shy
because
they were hunted
to
sell
blood
and
horns
as
medicine
in
Laos.
One of the
Khmer
Rouge
had
226
THAILAND
VIETNAM
Figure
2.
Observations
of
Javan
rhino.
(1)
1967;
(2)
1970;
(3)
1975;
(4)
1980s;
(5)
1980-1;
(6)
1981;
(7)
1982;
(8)
1982.
been
in a
group
of
soldiers
who had
killed
and
eaten
one in the
same
area
in
1982.
The
other
group
was in the
south
of the
country
in the
Elephant Mountains. They seemed
to be
less
threatened.
There
is a
possibility
of
confusing
the
Javan
rhino
with
its
slightly
less
rare relative,
the
Sumarran
rhino
Dicerorhinus
sumatrensis.
However,
all the
Khmers
who
claimed
to
have seen rhino were
emphatic that they were one-horned,
not
two-
horned. This
is not
surprising, since almost
all
early
records
in
Indo-China
refer
to
Javan rhino
(Groves,
1967);
the
mainland distribution
of
Sumarran rhino
was
more
to the
west.
Other
species
A
number
of
other species that
are
endangered
in
most
of
their
range
still
appear
to be
reasonably
common
in
parts
of
Kampuchea.
The
Siamese
race
of
Eld's,
or
brow-antlered
deer
Cervus
eldi
siamensis,
was
believed
to be
extinct,
or on the
verge
of
extinction. However, Khmers said that
this
species
was
still
reasonably common.
Its
con-
tinued
presence
in
Kampuchea
is
confirmed
by a
recent rack
of
antlers that
had
been brought
to
Thailand.
The
green peafowl
Pavo
muticus
is
another
species
that
has
been almost exterminated
from
Thailand.
Again,
the
Khmers said that
it was
still
Oryx
Vol
21 No 4,
October 1987

Javan
rhinoceros
(drawing
by
Bruce Pearson).
fairly
common.
I saw
several
tails
from
recently
killed
males
and was
informed
by UN
Border
Relief
Operation
staff
that
live
birds that
had
been
caught
in
Kampuchea were sold quite
frequently
in
Aranya Prathet,
on the
Thai border,
for
about
1000 baht (£25).
Tigers
and
elephants
are
also said
to be
reason-
ably
common
in the
remote areas. Tigers
are
still
hunted,
particularly
if
they become man-eaters.
Many
are
said
to
have acquired
a
taste
for
human
flesh
during
Khmer
Rouge
rule.
Elephants
are
thought
to be
badly
affected
by
land-mines,
although
no one I
spoke
to had
seen elephants
that
had
been
killed
in
this
way.
Discussion
After
talking
to the
Khmer
refugees,
I was
left
with
the
impression that
the
effects
of the
recent
troubles
on
Kampuchean
wildlife
were
not
nearly
as
drastic
as
expected.
It had
been assumed that
large game would
be
eradicated
by the
large
numbers
of
armed soldiers
and
guerillas
wan-
dering
around
a
country
suffering
from
food
shortage. However, soldiers said that
they
were
often
afraid
to
shoot
animals
for
food
because
the
Vietnamese
might
hear
and
shoot them
in
turn.
By way of
contrast,
in
Thailand,
which
is
politi-
cally
much more stable, there
is a
great deal
of
Kampuchean
wildlife
shooting
for
food
and
trophies.
One
consequence
of
Khmer
Rouge rule
was
that
few of the
people
were allowed
to
keep guns. They were also for-
bidden
to go
into
the
forest,
so
that they could
not
escape.
Land-mines
are an
obvious danger
to
wildlife
as
well
as to
people,
and
there
are a
vast
number
of
them—about
one
million
are
said
to
be
scattered along
the
border area. However,
it is
likely
that there
are not so
many
in the
interior.
The
other main problem
for
wildlife
is
habitat
destruction. Compared
with
other South East
Asian
countries, Kampuchea
is
relatively unsca-
thed
in
this respect. During
Pol
Pot's
regime many
city-dwellers
were sent
out to
clear areas
of
forest,
sometimes
for
crops, more
often
for no
real
purpose
except
're-education',
but
this
was
short-
lived
and, since
the
people
did not
have
effective
tools,
had
little
effect.
There
is
some
forest
clearing
taking
place
at the
moment. Trees along
the
northern border
are
being
felled
as
part
of the
effort
to
seal
off the
Khmer
Rouge
and
KPNLF
inside Thailand,
and
some roads,
particularly
along
the
border,
are
having
the
verges cleared
to
a
distance
of 500
m
to
prevent ambushes.
The
Vietnamese
are
also said
to be
felling
trees along
the
Mekong
to
float
downstream into their
own
country. Refugees
claim
that
the
Vietnamese
electrocute
fish
in
Tonle
Sap,
the
Great Lake,
but
it
is
difficult
to
know
how
important these activities
227

are,
if
they
do
indeed occur. Overall,
the
extent
of
deforestation
is
minute compared
with
Thailand.
There
are two
reasons
for
this.
Most
of the
heavily
forested
areas
are
used
by the
guerillas,
and
large-
scale
logging would
be an
extremely hazardous
exercise.
The
second
reason
is
that Kampuchea
is
one of the few
countries whose population
has
declined substantially
in
recent years,
and
there
is
consequently
no
shortage
of
agricultural land.
There
is
instead
a
shortage
of
man-power.
No
accurate
figures
are
available,
but it is
generally
accepted
that
the
population
of
Kampuchea
decreased
by
10-20
per
cent during
the
1970s.
The
future
While
the
situation
in
Kampuchea could
be
worse
for
the
wildlife,
and is
somewhat better
for the
people,
than
it was 10
years
ago,
it is
still
very
unsatisfactory,
and the
long-term
prospects
for
species
such
as
kouprey
and
rhino
are
distinctly
uncertain.
Effective
protection
will
be
possible
only when there
is a
political solution
to the
country's problems.
In the
meantime
the
Viet-
namese
and
Laotian governments,
and the
Heng
Samrin
government
in
Phnom Phen, have
agreed
on a
conservation plan
for
kouprey,
and
have declared large sanctuaries
in all
three
countries
(MacKinnon,
1986a).
This
is
unlikely
to
have
any
direct practical
effect
in
Kampuchea
since
the
areas
in
which
kouprey
live
are not
effectively
controlled
by
either side
in the
fighting.
It
may be
useful
in
reducing
the
amount
of
shooting
of
kouprey
by
Vietnamese soldiers.
On
the
other hand,
if
the
kouprey
is
used
as a
symbol
of
co-operation
between
the
three countries,
it
may be
interpreted
as a
symbol
of
Vietnamese
oppression
by
Khmer nationalists.
In
order
to
avoid this,
the
importance
of the
wildlife
heritage
of
Kampuchea must
be
stressed
to
both sides.
The
kouprey
was
once
used
by
Prince Sihanouk
as a
symbol
of
Khmer
unity.
If
Kampuchea
is to
become
a
united nation again then
a
sense
of
nationhood cannot come
from
a
shared history
since
recent
events
have
destroyed
this.
It
must
instead
come
from
an
appreciation
of the
common heritage,
including
the
natural heritage,
of
the
Khmer
people.
Acknowledgments
This
work would
not
have been possible without
the
assi-
stance
and
hospitality
of
United Nations Border
Relief
Operation
staff
in
Aranyaprathet, particularly John Moore,
Sylvia
Meek
and
Weerapun
Suphasai.
I
should also
like
to
thank
Colonel
Allen
and the
staff
of the
British
Embassy
in
Bangkok
for
their help,
and the
High
Command
of the
Royal
Thai
Army
and
Task Force
80
for
permission
to
visit
the
border
area.
1
must thank
the
residents
of
Site
2 and
Site
8, and
particularly
Ngiet
Sophon,
for
their co-operation.
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