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Tourists urged to visit endangered birds

Bird conservationists are calling on tourists to visit critically endangered birds living in Preah Vihear province’s Kulen Promtep and Chhep wildlife sanctuaries.
Dep Oun, the head of Tmatboey community in Preah Vihear, said locals had set up eco-tourism facilities in the area in 2008, but they only receive 200 tourists every year.

An eco-lodge with more than 10 rooms is available to visitors, allowing people to get up close and personal with birds such as the Giant Ibis and White-shouldered Ibis.
Both birds are listed as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. The Giant Ibis is also Cambodia’s national bird.

“We want more tourists, including local people, to visit so our community can survive,” Mr. Oun said. “Their visit will contribute to the preservation of some of the rarest birds in the world and improve the livelihoods of villagers.”

Mr. Oun said the only people that now visit are foreigners, who are mostly birdwatchers from Europe. The community estimates it could earn about $10,000 each tourist season, which runs from October until April, but only a handful of local tourists have ever visited.

He pointed out that he and other villagers used to be hunters, but had become conservationists when they understood how endangered the birds were.
However, he said his community still needs to find a way to earn an income.

Visitors to Tmatboey’s eco-lodge stay only a 30-minute walk from where the ibis live and can be escorted to view the birds by locals.

Two villagers guard each ibis nest every day, to protect chicks from attack. They are paid $3.50 per day.

Rours Vann, an Environment Ministry ranger and researcher at Kulen Promtep Wildlife Sanctuary, said Cambodia’s ibis population is unique.
He added that the nest protection program was started in 2002 by the Environment Ministry with financial and technical support from the Wildlife Conservation Society.

“These sanctuaries are a unique mix of habitats,” he said, adding that in 2017, villagers found seven White-shoulder Ibis nests, which the communities are paying to protect.

The Tmatboey eco-tourism community is located in Pring Thom commune in Preah Vihear’s Choam Ksan district, about 400 kilometers from Phnom Penh.

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/37041/ ... red-birds/

Giant Ibis (Thaumatibis gigantea)


With a remaining population of fewer than 250 birds, the giant ibis is found only in northern Cambodia and the extreme southern tip of Laos. It was previously found in southern Vietnam and southeast and peninsular Thailand, but is now extinct in these countries .

Too little, too late. Cambodia has a number of birds that are extinct or almost extinct elsewhere in the region, but rampant land grabbing, logging, and development will probably see them disappear in the next few years. The government does absolutely nothing to protect these birds, on the contrary it is largely government people that have hastened the demise of birds, and other wildlife, in the Kingdom of grab what you can.

when I saw the headline I thought it was a story about the bus company

More on threatened bird species in Preah Vihear province. The locals who are trying to protect the birds do their best, but have no support from the government. These parks are sanctuaries in name only.

Protected birds come under threat
31 March 2017

A protected bird species has come under renewed threat after land-grabbers invaded Preah Vihear province’s Kulen Promtep Wildlife Sanctuary and destroyed their habitat.

The lesser adjutant is listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. Protection of its nests started in 2002.

Rours Vann, an Environment Ministry ranger and sanctuary researcher, said that before 2015 a working group found about 140 nests. This was now down to about 40. Last year there were only 20 nests, but this had increased this year.

“This number decreased because of economic land concessions, logging, land grabbing and creating new villages,” Mr. Vann said. “The main problem is the increase in newcomers,” he said.

Many people came to occupy and grab land to build housing or cultivate, threatening and destroying nests for breeding. Mr. Vann said had asked the local authority to allow only two or three families per year to move in.
“I am also concerned that in the future, this species will be lost if these problems continue,” he said...
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/37102/ ... er-threat/

Cambodia's national bird is hanging on to its existence against the odds.

19 Endangered Ibis Nests Found in Preah Vihear
August 3, 2017
Nineteen nests of Cambodia’s national bird, the critically endangered giant ibis, were located in Preah Vihear province in the last two months, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Cambodia said in a statement released on Wednesday.

The species, which usually lay two eggs per clutch in the wet season, “has undergone an extremely rapid decline as a result of hunting, disturbance and lowland deforestation,” according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species.

“It is likely to continue to decline extremely rapidly owing to on-going deforestation and human disturbance,” the group’s website says.Thong Sokha, wildlife research and monitoring team leader for WCS and the Environment Ministry in the province’s Chhep Wildlife Sanctuary, said the team had recorded 14 nests in that sanctuary and five in Kulen Promtep Wildlife Sanctuary as of last month.

Between 14 and 18 nests were usually found in the province per breeding season, Eng Mengey, WCS communications officer in Cambodia, said on Wednesday...
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/19-e ... ar-133179/