National parks and wildlife sanctuaries

A steady stream of tractors loaded with timber clambered along the dirt roads heading out of the Phnom Aural Wildlife Sanctuary last week, some carrying cheap firewood, others loaded with more valuable logs. ...

Decades after poachers stripped the forests surrounding Angkor Wat of large mammals, an innovative conservation group is bringing them back. Already, Wildlife Alliance has rewilded the forest with gibbons and langurs. And more are coming. ...

A freshwater Mekong dolphin was found dead yesterday morning on a river bank Prek Prosob district, Kratie province, where only only about 80 Mekong dolphins remain, according to officials. ...

A protected forest and wildlife sanctuary in northern Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province has come under threat of illegal logging, with migrants to the area and soldiers clearing land and cutting down trees, sources say.​ ...

The director of Hirakawa Zoo in Japan has reportedly publicly stated his zoo wishes to acquire two Asian elephants currently housed at Teuk Chhou Zoo in Kampot province as part of a controversial animal swap deal. ...

A new 10-year action plan proposed by a host of NGOs aims to reverse the fortunes of Cambodia’s national bird, the giant ibis, which faces increasing pressure from human encroachment in its dwindling habitat.With fewer than 200 mature individuals now believed to survive in the ...

The release last week of camera-trap photos showing fishing cats prowling wetlands in Koh Kong and Preah Sihanouk provinces drew cheers from environmentalists as well as a note of caution – ensuring their survival will require plenty of work. ...

The role played by vultures in maintaining the environment by stripping the carcasses of dead animals was celebrated yesterday at an event in Preah Vihear province, where conservationists and officials pledged to do more to protect the species’ dwindling numbers. ...

Economic land concessions are having a huge impact on Cambodia’s northeastern forests, a new reports shows. Still, those who attended Wednesday’s seminar urged the government to do more to stop the practice. Based on calculations of the number of logging trucks counted leaving the ...

The Angkor Wildlife Release Project successfully released a third group of primates into the Angkor Archaeological Park earlier this summer. An enclosure for two species of deer is now under construction. ...

In Cambodia’s wildlife sanctuaries, conservation areas and national parks, forests are falling as fast as anywhere else. ...

An endangered gaur – a species of wild bovine – was reportedly shot dead near a protected forest last Wednesday in Stung Treng’s Siem Pang district. ...

CNRP lawmakers have written to Prime Minister Hun Sen asking him to stop the ongoing illegal logging of northeast Cambodia’s Virachey National Park, which they said they witnessed during a recent trip and blamed on businessmen An Mady and Try Pheap. ...

A Japanese company, A2A Town (Cambodia), has submitted a request to the Cambodian Ministry of Environment to establish helicopter flights from Phnom Penh to Preah Soramrit Kossamak Kirirom National Park in Kampong Speu province.​​ ...

Military police in Ratanakkiri province working with the NGO Wildlife Alliance confiscated 40 kg of bushmeat from two vendors at a Banlung City market Thursday morning but let the women go with a warning. ...

The World Wildlife Fund has called for closer cooperation between Cambodia and Laos to protect the Mekong River dolphin, in the wake of the death this week of a female thought to be one of less than 85 left in the river. ...

Experts involved in the protection of Cambodia’s national bird, the giant ibis, have lauded the successes of an ongoing conservation scheme, and offered cause for optimism that the animal can overcome its current status as critically endangered. ...

Twenty-eight hard-shell turtles and eight snakes – weighing more than 50 kilograms – were seized from a minivan in Kampong Thom’s Kampong Svay district on Wednesday. ...

The 21st century welcomed its first baby gibbon at Cambodia’s Angkor Archaeological Park, in a celebrated step towards the conservation of an endangered species. ...

As the Mekong Irrawaddy dolphin population steadily declines, conservation groups have voiced concern that the critically endangered species may be swimming toward extinction if drastic measures are not soon taken to protect them. The numbers tell a depressing tale: From 2011 to 2014, 23 dolphins were ...

The new director-general of the international environmental group WWF, Marco Lambertini, met Tuesday with Environment Minister Say Sam Al to raise concerns over development projects that could have harmful environmental impacts, and one in particular that could derail plans to reintroduce tigers to Cambodia. ...

An excavator operator clearing a patch of land in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district had a surprise run-in on Friday with six pythons, which broke cover as his machine moved onto their wetland habitat, according to a local official. ...

Wildlife experts fear for the health of a migratory vulture from Central Asia after it was captured by villagers in Kampot province’s Teuk Chhou district and taken to a notorious private zoo. The Himalayan vulture, also known as the Himalayan griffon, which rarely visits Cambodia, was ...

A python escaped from the house of a government official and is on the loose in the Cambodian capital, a local newspaper reported Monday. It is the second such serpent to escape from the Phnom Penh home of Nhim Vanda, the first vice chairman of Cambodia’s ...