Conservationists in Cambodia found 106 eggs of rare Siamese crocodile species in a western Cambodian wildlife sanctuary, officials said on Thursday, calling it the biggest discovery in the past 20 years, giving new hope for the world’s rarest crocodile species’ survival.
The group discovered the species eggs in Cardamom National Park in May. Between June 27 and 30, a total of 60 eggs were successfully hatched, according to a joint statement issued by the Cambodian ministries of agriculture and environment along with the conservation group Fauna and Flora.
“This discovery indicates that the area is a key habitat for wild crocodiles, providing hope for the species recovery,” the statement said.
Photo: Fauna and Flora, via AFP
The area and the young reptiles have been under the protection of Cardamom National Park Wildlife Sanctuary rangers, it added.
The crocodile species was once widespread across Southeast Asia, but is now listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. It had all but disappeared by the 1990s due to a combination of poaching, habitat destruction and crossbreeding with other crocodile species.
Cambodian Minister of Environment Eang Sophalleth said his ministry is working on the conservation and habitat restoration of these critically endangered Siamese crocodiles.
“The Siamese crocodiles play an important role in the ecosystem and the discovery of the five nets successfully hatching 60 eggs reflects that the Cardamom National Park is a safe and suitable habitat for this species,” Sophalleth said in Thursday’s statement.
It is believed only about 1,000 Siamese crocodiles remain in the wild, with more than 300 of them in Cambodia.
In 2017, wildlife researchers found six eggs in Sre Ambel District in the southern province of Koh Kong as they were exploring for tracks and signs of the reptile. Later in September 2021, eight hatchlings were found by conservationists in a river in the Srepok wildlife sanctuary in eastern Cambodia which raised hopes for its survival in the wild.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS