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Siamese Crocodile
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| Siamensis crocodile, Laos. |
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Until recently, scientists believed that the Siamese crocodile may be extinct in the wild, since the last known population in Thailand had vanished in the 1980s.Recent surveys by WCS have found that this crocodile is all but gone in Vietnam. However, other work, including a number of WCS efforts, have shown that a small number of these crocodiles remain in other areas. WCS field scientists have identified what may be the last Siamese crocodile population in Laos, and are developing plans to work with the Lao government to develop a national crocodile conservation plan.
A surprising find came in April 2001 when a WCS team looking for tigers using camera-traps, photographed a Siamese crocodile lumbering along a beach in a national park in remote western Thailand. However, much of our focus on this species will be in Cambodia, where the largest remaining groups exist. Emerging from decades of civil war and bloodshed, Cambodia is an important nation for the conservation of the critically endangered Siamese crocodile. In conjunction with the Department of Fisheries and
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Bung Khe wetland, Laos. |
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Ministry of Environment WCS has initiated work in the Tonle Sap Lake, the enormous Mekong floodplain lake, which is among the largest freshwater wetlands in southeast Asia. Throughout the country, over 500 commercial crocodile farms exist, and some of these continue to buy crocodiles from the wild, creating strong economic incentives for fishermen to continue catching crocodiles. Our major goal is a tri-country program of surveys, training, ecological studies and development of regional conservation program- Siamese croc as flagship species for wetlands conservation in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia.
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