PHNOM PENH: A helicopter efficiently herded 16 critically endangered banteng onto a truck in Cambodia for the primary time, conservationists stated, marking a “important achievement” in a rustic with excessive charges of deforestation.
Banteng are a sort of untamed cattle native to Southeast Asia and listed as critically endangered on the Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature’s Purple Checklist of threatened species.
Their pure habitat is forests and grasslands, however just a few thousand stay within the wild and they’re principally threatened by looking, logging and trade.
Cambodia has misplaced round 33 per cent of its tree cowl since 2000, in line with on-line forest monitoring system World Forest Watch, as the federal government permits corporations to clear huge tracts of land – together with in protected zones.
Conservation teams Rising Phoenix and Siem Pang stated that 16 banteng discovered within the wild have been herded over three days final week by way of a “mass-capture funnel lure” onto a truck earlier than being relocated to a wildlife sanctuary.
For the primary time, a helicopter was used to information them by way of the funnel.
The operation befell in Siem Pang in northeastern Cambodia.
The conservation teams stated that the strategy “opens the way in which for additional such operations to relocate Banteng trapped in remoted forest patches elsewhere within the nation”.
They added that the banteng shall be monitored and guarded on the Siem Pang Wildlife Sanctuary.
