- Conservationists say they’re upbeat about the revival of Siamese crocodile populations, following the discovery that 60 of the critically endangered reptiles recently hatched from five nests in Cambodia.
- There are only an estimated 400 of the animals in the country, so the recent discovery represents “a tremendous boost,” according to Pablo Sinovas, Fauna & Flora Cambodia’s country director.
- While poaching for the leather trade was once the main threat to Siamese crocodiles, the main perils today are posed by habitat destruction for dams and entanglement in fishing nets.
- Conservationists say there also needs to be a change in public perceptions of the crocodiles, which are widely seen as dangerous despite there being no records of them having attacked humans.
KOH KONG, Cambodia — The recent discovery of 60 Siamese crocodile hatchlings in the southwest of Cambodia has sparked hope among conservationists, with the five successful nests highlighting the resilience of the critically endangered species in the wild.
Deep within the remote Cardamom Mountains, 60 eggs were found to have successfully hatched — a discovery that Pablo Sinovas, Fauna & Flora Cambodia’s country director, called “the largest number of wild Siamese crocodile hatchlings recorded in Cambodia this century.”
Cambodia’s wild population of Siamese crocodiles (Crocodylus siamensis) was previously estimated at around 400, with the mortality rate among most crocodile species’ young at roughly 80%, Sinovas said. As such, 60 hatchlings in the wild is “a tremendous boost.”
According to Sinovas, the discovery “is a very promising sign” that Fauna & Flora’s conservation efforts in the Cardamoms have been successful. The NGO has released 196 Siamese crocodiles in Koh Kong province through its reintroduction program since 2012. The discovery has given conservationists cause for optimism after the species’ population declined dramatically due to years of habitat loss and poaching — largely for the production of crocodile skin goods — that saw Siamese crocodiles disappear from 99% of their natural range.
“Poaching is no longer a major threat to the species,” Sinovas said in an email to Mongabay. “The global market demand for Siamese crocodile skins has all but collapsed and crocodile farms have more specimens than they can sell. Aside from habitat destruction, a threat to the species is gill nets, as they can entangle and drown crocodiles.”
Across the Cambodian stretch of the Cardamoms, new hydropower dams are opening up remote stretches of rainforest, altering riverine ecosystems that provide key habitats for the critically endangered crocodiles and undermining conservation efforts.
“Cambodia, and the Cardamoms in particular, represent one of the most important strongholds for the species globally,” Sinovas said. “Ongoing efforts to conserve these key populations continue to be critical — while progress is being made, habitats are shrinking and the species still requires dedicated support to recover.”
But it’s not just the Cardamom Mountains where conservationists are seeing success with the reintroduction of Siamese crocodiles. In Cambodia’s northeast, social enterprise Rising Phoenix has been working to preserve Siem Pang Wildlife Sanctuary since 2015. It was here, close to Cambodia’s border with Laos, that a 2020 survey found crocodile tracks at four separate locations across the sanctuary, suggesting that a wild population of the embattled crocodiles still lived within the Sekong River.
Rising Phoenix worked with specialists from Fauna & Flora to improve Siamese crocodile habitats across Siem Pang Wildlife Sanctuary’s rivers, leading to the release of 19 crocodiles in 2022 and then a further 22 in 2023.
Eggs in nests found in 2023 were all consumed by predators said Romain Legrand, biodiversity research and monitoring manager at Rising Phoenix. “But this year we have evidence of hatching as we recorded at least 14 young.”
While Siem Pang isn’t threatened by hydropower development in the same way that the Cardamoms are, Legrand said unsustainable fishing practices, particularly electric fishing and nets that entangle and drown the crocodiles, remain a challenge.
“What is at stake in Siem Pang and in the Cardamoms is to demonstrate that Cambodia too can effectively conduct rewilding programs and properly mitigate threats to critically endangered species,” Legrand said. “There is enough room for wildlife in Cambodia, but the population needs to be willing to coexist with these species.”
Cambodia isn’t alone in these efforts. Significant populations exist in Laos, especially in the Xe Champhone wetlands, and in Central Kalimantan province in Indonesian Borneo. Smaller populations still cling on in Thailand, but the Siamese crocodile is virtually extinct in Vietnam.
As such, the successful hatching of five nests is “very significant,” according to Steven Platt, a herpetologist working across Southeast Asia with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Platt noted that WCS’s own Siamese crocodile project in Koh Kong province is smaller, saying he would be happy if they found one successfully hatched nest per year, let alone five.
“The Cardamoms is probably one of about two or three of the most significant wild populations of Siamese crocodiles,” Platt said in a phone interview with Mongabay.
The development of hydropower dams presents a threat as the fluctuating water levels risk drowning nests and the denuding of reservoir banks leaves no vegetation for crocodiles to hunt in, he said. While Platt noted that Siamese crocodiles are resilient and can survive inside properly managed hydropower dam reservoirs, he warned against wishful thinking, saying the creation of a reservoir usually comes at the price of destroying an existing natural habitat for the species.
Other setbacks to the species’ revival come in the form of how they’re perceived. While Platt noted that there were no known records of Siamese crocodiles attacking people, unlike the much larger and more aggressive saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus), people’s understanding of the species is limited, leading to the reptiles being perceived as dangerous animals.
“It’s just a public perception that these animals are dangerous so maybe you could do an education campaign, but those things take a long time to for lessons to be learned and we just don’t have that time with the Siamese crocodile,” he said.
Despite the setbacks facing the critically endangered animals, Platt said he wholeheartedly believes that Siamese crocodiles can make a comeback in the wild across Southeast Asia.
“These conservation projects certainly keep extinction at bay,” he said, adding that the successes in Laos have been seen in areas more densely populated and agriculturally cultivated than the Cardamoms. “They don’t need wilderness areas. They just need to be left alone.”
Banner image: Siamese crocodiles in Siem Pang. Image courtesy of Rising Phoenix.
A royal release: Cambodia returns 51 rare turtles to the wild
Credits
