Lizard-like mammal star of Kulen conservatory

Veterinarian Stich and biolo­gist Kruger, both from Germany, run the Angkor Center for Con­servation of Biodiversity (ACCB) in Phnom Kulen National Park, about 45 kilometers north of Siem Reap. The two animal-lovers, who have been in Cambodia for four and a half years, live in remote Kulen at the conservation center.

As a house mate. Ping was not the most pleasant company. The pangolin, a native to Cambodia and most of Southeast Asia, is a nocturnal animal. And it stinks. Hence the transfer to an enclosure specially built for this exceptional, lizard-like mammal, did not cause the couple too much heartache.

Zarbasz, the last foster child Stich and Kruger shared their house with, was more like a fam­ily member. A pileated gibbon, now 21 months old, Zarbasz was raised by bottle and stayed with his foster parents for a year and a half. A few weeks ago this dark-faced lesser ape with a fluffy coat moved out to share a cage with AJ, a three-year-old female gib­bon who, like Zarbasz, was raised by humans. Their relationship is characterized by wariness, some­times hostility. "Apes raised by humans don't usually consider other apes as of their own kind", Kruger explains.

Zarbasz was handed over to the conservation center voluntar­ily by his former owner, an expa­triate living in Phnom Penh, whereas AJ came from a restau­rant in Siem Reap, where mon­keys and cats of prey are still fre­quently being kept for the enter­tainment of tourists — often in hair-raising conditions.

"Little gibbons are often cap­tured because they are so cute", says Stich. "Tourists can take pic­tures holding them in their arms. But most people don't know that the parents have to be killed to get the baby monkeys."

Pileated gibbons live only in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand and are listed as vulnerable in the red list of threatened species.

If an owner doesn't have a li­cense for keeping wildlife, the animals can be confiscated. This is done by forestry officials or the Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team, which is managed by the NGO WildAid in partnership with the Cambodian Department of For­estry and Wildlife.

This task force seizes about 5,000 live animals every year from res­taurants, shops, markets and on national roads. Last year, accord­ing to WildAid data, 6,294 live arü-mals were confiscated, as well as 2,183 dead and cooked animals and 1,237 kilograms of wildlife meat.

Most of the living wildlife is released immediately into its natural habitat, says WildAid dir­ector Suwanna Gauntlett.

Sick animals or babies — like the pangolin Ping, which was only a few weeks old when confiscated from an illegal trader — are taken to one of the two shelters in Cam­bodia: the ACCB at Kulen, which focuses on smaller animals and currently holds about 100 of them, and the Phnom Tamao Zoological Garden and WildHfe Rescue Cen­ter in Kandal province, which has over 800 animals, including el­ephants, tigers and bears.

The ACCB, which includes a quarantine station, a small veteri­narian practice, a breeding sec­tion, and an education center open to students in the area, sometimes receives animals that don't quite fit the center's requirements.

The project's goal is the pro-I tection and breeding of I threatened species in Cam­bodia as well as environ­mental education. It was initiated by the provincial govemment of Siem Reap and established in 2001 by the Allwetterzoo of Münster, Germany, and the German Zoologi­cal Society for the Conservation of Species and Populations.

Animals that aren't threatened with extinction are released into the wild as early as possible. The last one to leave the center was Shy, a leopard cat which, although not on the red list, was granted asylum at ACCB more than six months ago to protect him from trafficking, harmful husbandry and an early death, Krüger ex­plains. Shy was only a cub when caught in the jungle and first had to learn how to hunt.

Morkeleb, on the other hand, a 2.3-meter-long, 20kg water-moni­tor lizard, will probably spend the rest of his life at the conservation center. Fishermen caught him in the Tonle Sap. He is not at risk and was "thrown out" promptly But half a year later he was back, just skin and bones. Stich diag­nosed that he had developed an eye cataract, which caused him problems when hunting.

The ACCB is also flush with turtles. It keeps several threatened species, from the 4kg giant Asian pond turtle, classified as vulner­able, down to the yellow-headed temple turtle, classified as endan­gered. More recently, 37 elongated tortoises — an equally endan­gered species — arrived. They had been confiscated by forestry ad­ministration officials in Svay Leu, east of Phnom Kulen. "These turtles are in the same red-list cat­egory as the tiger, but they are just not as popular," Stich says.

Cambodian wildlife is un­der threat from hunting and from habitat destruc­tion. Stich and Kruger say they are watching with alarm the exploitation of the forest on their doorstep. When they started the project, woodland in Phnom Kulen National Park was almost inexhaustible, says Kruger. Now there are large gaps everywhere. "People settle, poach and clear the forest for rice fields. We hear chainsaws every day."

The project includes an educa­tional component, funded by GTZ, the German Technical Co­operation agency, and aimed at giving a chance of survival to birds, monkeys, turtles and other species being bred at ACCB for release into the jungle.

Kong Sith, a Cambodian teach­er, gives lessons to villagers, as well as to forestry, environment, military and роИсе ofticials, deal­ing with endangered species and ecological background.

"What is the correlation be­tween the climate, the forest and animals?" Sith says. "Why are trees good for us? These are ques­tions I cover in my lessons.

"The people don't know any­thing about that. They destroy the forest and kill the animals." Sith, 26, regards bans and pro­hibition as useless. "Environ­mental education is essential for Cambodia," he says.

Pangolins live in trees as well as in burrows in the forest and stiU exist in quite large numbers, but trade with Vietnam, Thailand and China con­tinues, according to the ACCB.

"The population will decline sig­nificantly in coming years," Stich says. WildAid director Gaimtlett agrees. "They are getting rarer and rarer The price has risen astronomi­cally. They pay $45 a kilogram for pangolins that are mainly hunted for tiieir meat," she says.

Hence, the goal of the Angkor Center for Conservation of Bio­diversity is to build up a popula­tion that can be reintroduced into the wild and also be supplied to other zoos. A big challenge, as Kruger affirms.

"Most pangolins die during the first two weeks in captivity," he says.

To his knowledge the ACCB is the only institution holding a pangolin, Manis javanica. "The record period for keeping a pangolin is 22 months," he says, "so, our 10 months are a success already."

The biggest problem is diet. Adult pangolins, which can grow to 1.4 meters long and weigh up to 5kg, feed exclusively on live ants and termites. Termite collec­tion can quickly become a prob­lem and adaptation to a different diet is therefore crucial.

Ping, who now weighs 3.4kg, gets a mixture of red ants, ground cat-food and boiled egg. The gar­deners working at the ACCB col­lect the ants quite easily on the 27 hectare compound - for many zoos that would be a major obstacle.

Fifteen local staff work at the conservation center, and the plan is that in future it will be run entirely by Cambodians. But Kruger says there is still a long way to go before they have gained enough know­ledge and experience to take over.

But Stich and Kruger, who started in 2001 with nothing but a piece of land in the jungle, say they are not in a hurry.

"We came here with the idea to stay either just half a year - or five to twenty years," Kruger says. For the time being, they plan to remain in the wilderness of Phnom Kulen that has become their home.