In November 2017, as a part of biodiversity monitoring and assessment activities supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), scientists and conservationists from the Zoological and Wildlife Research Institute Leibniz (Leibniz-IZW) and WWF-Vietnam took photos of certainly one of the rarest and most endangered mammal species in Southeast Asia, the great-horned muntjac (Muntiacus Vuquangensis), in Quang Nam Province in central Vietnam.
Before this milestone, the species had only been caught on camera in three protected areas across Vietnam since 2000. New records from Quang Nam, which include photos of a male and a female, provide latest hope for the continued survival of a species that’s on the verge of extinction.
“This is amazing news,” said Phan Tuan, director of the Quang Nam Forest Conservation Department in Vietnam. “These two persons are each mature and of childbearing age.
“These photos prove that this species still lives in Quang Nam Province and provides us hope that a breeding population may even exist.”
The great-horned muntjac was discovered by scientists in 1994 and is found exclusively within the Annamites mountain range on the border of Vietnam and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic.
Illegal hunting, carried out mainly by setting snares, has decimated the species throughout its range. There is outwardly loads of pressure within the forests of central Vietnam. For example, between 2011 and 2017, government rangers and WWF forest guards removed over 100 thousand wire snares from the Thua Thien Hue and Quang Nam Saola nature reserves.
In 2016, in response to the species’ decline brought on by snares, the status of the good horned muntjac on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species was modified from Vulnerable to Critically Endangered.
Conservation stakeholders proceed efforts to guard the great-horned muntjac within the wild. However, recognizing the overwhelming pressures this species faces and the undeniable fact that its population is currently critically low, the federal government and international non-governmental organizations plan to determine a captive insurance population for this species and the saoli (Pseudoryx nghe inhensis).
The saola is one other recently discovered endemic ungulate that’s even rarer than the great-horned muntjac and will now be near extinction.
Dr. Benjamin Rawson, WWF-Vietnam Conservation Director, notes: “The greater horned muntjac is not currently found in captivity, so if we lose them in the wild, we will lose them forever. Scientists are racing against time to save the species Addressing the creeping wildlife conservation crisis in central Vietnam’s forests and establishing captive populations are essential if we are to succeed.”
In addition to the great-horned muntjac, other USAID-funded camera trap studies have also documented other conservation priority species, including Owston’s civet (Chrotogale owstoni), Asian black bear (Tibetan bear), striped anamite rabbit (Nesolagus to Timmins) and pangolin (Manis sp).
“Finding these rare and beautiful species gives new hope for Vietnam’s precious biodiversity treasures,” says Nguyen Van Thanh, who led the sector study.
Thanh is a PhD candidate on the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and a recipient of the WWF Russell E. Train Fellowship.
“Although the population of all mammals and birds on earth has declined due to trapping, our results show that the forests of Quang Nam Province still host globally important biodiversity,” adds Thanh. The results of this study will help the Quang Na Forest Conservation Department develop higher management and enforcement plans to avoid wasting these species and their habitats.
Leibniz-IZW and WWF-Vietnam research teams are actually expanding plans for systematic camera trapping to other areas within the region, including sites with high biodiversity potential in Thua Thien Hue Province, north of Quang Nam.
Teams hope to find more surprises. But irrespective of what they discover in the longer term, the rediscovery of the Great Horned Muntjac in Quang Nam will all the time remain a milestone for the research teams, the conservation community and Vietnam.
