Community activists and natural resource conservationists have expressed concerns over the continued hunting and snaring of wildlife in protected sanctuaries, especially this summer, when many rare and endangered species have been found killed or injured by snaring.
Venerable Im So An, vice-chairman of Monk’s Community Forestry Cambodia (MCF), has stated that this summer, illegal hunting and snaring of wild animals has continued unabated in the Sorng Rukhavorn Wildlife Sanctuary in Oddar Meanchey province, despite the efforts of the authorities and the community to stop it.
“During a recent forest patrol, the MCF team found and removed more than 300 traps and found many rare animals dead and injured by snares,” he said.
According to the monk, the animals found dead and injured by snaring included banteng, gaur, deer, civet, peacock and wild boars. He said that in the last three years, hunters have used snares instead of guns to hunt the animals because the equipment is cheap, easy to transport and it kills animals quietly.
On January 22, a female banteng was spotted by a community member with a front leg injury walking out of the forest of the Sorng Rukhavorn Wildlife Sanctuary. Villagers and monks handed it over to the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center for treatment, but because of the severe injury it died five days later.
Ean Eang, deputy chairman of the MCF committee, told The Post that patrolling the forest to find hunters and other criminals was a difficult task. In particular, it is hard to find the snares that they secretly set in the forest and those traps can be life-threatening even to the community and park rangers.
“Some snares used by illegal hunters are electrical devices connected to batteries that can kill us by stepping on or touching them if we are not careful,” he said.
“Deforestation activity has been reduced but poaching in the sanctuary continues at alarming rates,” he added.
Ly Virak, president of the Sorng Rukhavorn Wildlife Sanctuary, acknowledged that poaching and trapping continues in the sanctuary despite efforts by park rangers and the community to prevent it and arrest the perpetrators.
“The perpetrators always come to set their traps at night. In addition, the size of the wildlife sanctuary is large, but the forces of our park rangers are still limited.”
According to Virak, the Sorng Rukhavorn Wildlife Sanctuary covers an area of 30,254 hectares in three districts including Anlong Veng, Chongkal and Samrong. He said only six park rangers have been patrolling the entire sanctuary.
“Wildlife crime will not end if some people continue to eat bushmeat and use some animal specimens for medicine or other things,” he said.