Group calls for urgent action to protect wild animals

Conservationist group said the ungulate wild animal species in the Srepok and Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuaries in northeast Cambodia’s Mondulkiri province have suffered a dramatic decline in the past decade and that urgent action is needed to reverse the drop.

According to a joint statement by Cambodia’s Environment Ministry and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) on Saturday, the results from a decade-long (2010-2020) ungulate monitoring programme in both wildlife sanctuaries demonstrated that banteng, muntjac (barking deer), and wild pig populations have decreased by 72%, 52% and 18%, respectively when compared with the baseline population estimates from 2010-2011.