Help Bring Wildlife Back to Angkor Forest

Things are going well for the released animals now living in the forests of the Angkor Archeological Park in Siem Reap, Cambodia that your donations support, and we have not had any serious concerns during the past quarter. Despite the current heavy rains, all seem to be coping well in their transfer to a walk on the wild side.

Obviously wet weather does not bother our three otters, who still return most days to eat the fish we continue to provide. They seem to be staying closer to their release enclosure, perhaps realizing the dangers that fishermen’s nets and fish traps pose to unwary otters. We have written to APSARA, the Government authority that manages this UNESCO World Heritage Site, about this matter, requesting intervention to help keep our animals safe. For now the supplemental food we provide remains essential – and camera trap photos in June showed them waiting in their enclosure for the fish to arrive one day when keeper Sarin was later than usual!

The wild silvered langurs that we rescued at the Government’s request from an island off the coast of Sihanoukville that was being developed and released into Angkor in 2018 have split into 2 troupes. Keen observers can sometimes see them high in the forest canopy. Langur numbers are increasing as indicated by the bright orange infants, a stark contrast to the grey and black colouring of their parents.

Other animals we have released, such as red muntjac and small carnivores like leopard cats and civets are very seldom seen, but their footprints indicate they are surviving. The birds, green peafowl and three species of hornbills we released last year, are mobile with hornbills now seen entering the outskirts of the city of Siem Reap. Only one green peafowl still returns regularly to eat the food we provide.

The four pairs of pileated gibbons we have released and their offspring – now 7 wild-born infants in total – are also fine. The youngest of the wild-born babies, Mey-ambaugh (Butterfly in Khmer), is now about a year old and big enough to leave her mother for periods of time. Recently, we had a small scare concerning Bakheng, the partner of Ping-peeung who was the first gibbon to be born in Angkor and has now grown into an 8-year old adult. It has been raining constantly and our keepers who monitor and offer food to our animals post-release did not see Bakheng for a day and a half. Thankfully our concerns proved to be unfounded and he reappeared. Perhaps he was just sheltering from the rain.

There is a long road ahead in our project to restore some of Cambodia’s beautiful natural heritage into her primary site of cultural heritage and many things can go wrong, but with all going smoothly right now we will simply say “so far so good”.

Your donations make it possible for us to continue providing long-term supplemental food and monitoring, which is so important to ensure our releases lead to successful reintroductions, particularly for species such as gibbons and otters, and eventually will lead to sustainable wildlife populations in Angkor. Thank you so much for your support.

With all of the recent otter and bird releases, it’s been a while since we featured gibbons in a report for our GlobalGiving donors. My boss, Nick, travels to field sites around the country every week while my work mostly keeps me deskbound in Phnom Penh. But in June I was able to visit the first gibbon pair released in Angkor! So this report is about their family’s story, visiting them with my own family, and why it is important that only appropriate animals are released and that correct protocols are followed.

The first gibbon pair released in Angkor, Baray (male) and Saranick (female), were born in captivity at Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre to parents rescued from the illegal trade. Most primates rescued from the pet trade in Cambodia are humanized, and thus sadly cannot be safely released because they lack the skills needed to survive in the wild and they tend to be less fearful of humans, so they may become either overly-friendly or aggressive towards people. However, natural behavior is encouraged at Phnom Tamao by providing large enclosures where gibbons can live in pairs and raise their own young. Thus, unlike their rescued parents who were raised by humans, Baray and Saranick were raised by their own mothers and exhibited behaviors that made them ideal release candidates. They were transferred to Angkor in 2013 and spent 6 months acclimatizing to their new surroundings in an enclosure. When released, they became the first pileated gibbons to enjoy freedom in Angkor’s ancient forests since the species was extirpated from the area due to hunting during Cambodia’s genocide and civil war.

Today, Saranick and Baray still live in the forest surrounding their release site with their two younger offspring, Chung-ruth (which means ‘cricket’ in Khmer) who is almost 5-years old and 2-year old Kontes-long (‘water beetle’). While comfortable with Wildlife Alliance’s animal keepers who they see every day, as you can see from the zoom lens photos below that my partner took, Baray and Saranick are quite wary of people they don’t know - like my family! This is good because it means they are unlikely to seek out people or become humanized and should stay in the safe area of forest selected for their release site, which is away from heavily visited areas of the Park such as Angkor Wat. After the keepers filled their feed basket with rambutan and other fruits, we watched from a respectful distance as each gibbon descended to snatch some fruit and then quickly retreated to higher branches to eat.

Unlike more social monkey species such as macaques, which live in large groups, pileated gibbons are territorial apes. They tend to live in pairs that defend a sizeable area of about 30 hectares, and grown offspring move away when they reach adulthood. That is why Baray and Saranick’s eldest daughter, Ping-Peeung (‘spider’), born in 2014, is no longer with their family group. When Ping-Peeung reached 5 years of age, her parents began to chase her away from the family’s feed basket. Now that Chung-ruth is approaching adulthood, our staff have noticed that Baray might be starting to display similar behavior. During our short visit, Baray jumped towards Chung-ruth several times to steal his seat on a branch and/or hug him in what seemed at times playful, but definitely dominant, behavior.

With Ping-peeung, hanging a second basket in another tree resolved the family tensions for a while. But in December 2020 she was finally driven out, left her family’s territory and entered a village nearby. We captured Ping-Peeung and brought her to a different release site to introduce her to a young male, Bakheng, who had been brought up from Phnom Tamao. The two spent about a year bonding together and acclimatizing before they were released. This is a good example of how we carefully plan and execute our releases to give each animal the best chance of survival and intervene to manage them as necessary.

Over the past few years, we have been promoting this project to elevate the importance of wildlife conservation within this world famous cultural heritage site, and the idea of re-wilding Angkor seems to have captured the public’s imagination! After seeing this video a local man who had been looking after many green peafowl and hornbills contacted our staff and offered to donate all of his birds for release in Angkor. This was an excellent opportunity to reintroduce beautiful, large native bird species and they were soft-released by our program following appropriate protocols.

However, not all wild animals are suitable for release and it is essential to understand the species’ needs and assess each individual’s condition before releasing any wild animal! Near the end of May, a visitor showed up at the Angkor Zipline Centre with a gibbon that he intended to release. We do not advertise the locations of our release sites, but gibbon calls are quite loud and many local people know there are gibbons in the forest nearby the Centre so he probably thought this would be a good place to release his gibbon as well. While this enthusiasm for reintroducing wildlife to Angkor is what we hope to inspire, it would have been terrible if this well-meaning person had released this adult male gibbon there. It was tame and lacked the skills required for life in the wild and Baray surely would have defended his family’s territory against this outsider! Luckily, we have a good relationship with the Zipline staff who alerted us before the other gibbon was released. Instead it was collected by our Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team and taken to Phnom Tamao, where it is receiving the rehabilitation and care it needs.

Your generous donations make it possible for our team to be onsite every day, giving supplemental food and conducting long-term monitoring of our released gibbons and their wild-born offspring. The Angkor keepers’ constant presence and ties to local people within the Park enables us to keep abreast of the many surprises and challenges that arise in this groundbreaking and experimental project. Thank you so much for your support!

Links:

• Rewilding Angkor