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February 5 2021

The enigmatic Saola and the Annamite Mountains

By Rob Timmins, March 2020

The Saola is nothing if not enigmatic. Much like an antelope in appearance, its present-day relatives are wild cattle such as bison and oxen. The sole representative of the genus Pseudoryx, this quiet, shy creature has hidden in the Annamite Mountain rainforests for millions of years, little changed since before humans even evolved. In fact, Saola have probably existed in much the same form, on just a tiny fraction of the earth’s surface, for millions of years, predating the origins of our own genus, Homo.

The Annamite Mountains are as spectacularly distinctive as this enigmatic inhabitant. A combination of geography and climate and the stability of these systems over geologic timescales, in contrast to radical changes in surrounding ecosystems, have driven a process of both relative evolutionary stasis and isolated evolutionary advancement in the Annamites. The latter process is akin to that described by Charles Darwin in the Galapagos and Alfred Russel Wallace in the Malay Archipelago. Isolated forests subjected to unique environmental conditions over long periods of time become an evolutionary factory for endemic species. This is what we see in the Annamites today. Consequently, the Annamite Mountains, forming much of the border between Lao PDR and Vietnam, experiencing both continental and coastal weather systems and surrounded by areas of human impact, are one of the most biologically diverse and unique regions in the world.

Whilst much of the rest of life on Earth busily evolved, and eventually humans came into existence, deep in the Annamite Mountains, the Saola and other evolutionary ‘enigmas’ from the past, like the Annamite Striped Rabbit, have thrived without the need to radically change.

It is only in the last half-century that the Saola’s existence became seriously threatened, by the encroachment of humans and their technology.

Annamite Striped Rabbit – endemic to the Annamite Mountains

The current rarity and high degree of endangerment of Saola is attributable to a wildlife exploitation epidemic in Southeast Asia. Most devastating has been the advent of industrial-scale wildlife snaring in the late 1980s and early 1990s. We call it ‘industrial-scale’, because literally tens of millions of snares, interspersed in tens of thousands of miles of brush fence lines, have been set within the range of Saola over the last 30 years. This rampant hunting is fueled by demand for species valued in the commercial trade for bushmeat and traditional medicines. The Saola has relatively low economic value, with edible meat and horns that can be sold as ‘curios’. Despite this, Saola, through traits of their ecology and behavior, are especially sensitive to snares set for other mammals, and to hunting with dogs.They have been affected disproportionately and fared far worse than some other species, such as wild pigs and civets.

So few Saola remain in the wild, that to save the Saola from extinction we must find and capture the last remaining animals and, using the best of modern knowledge and technology, breed those animals in a state-of-the-art breeding facility, and ultimately restore wild populations into secure areas of native range.

Please, consider donating and join our cause.

Industrial-scale snaring is wiping out terrestrial forest wildlife in Southeast Asia

December 17 2020

Saola Foundation – Holiday Auction

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Have you ever dreamed of getting up close to a saola? Here’s a chance to hold one in your hand…

Brent Huffman is a man of diverse talents – Lead Keeper of Mammals at Toronto Zoo, founder of the website Ultimate Ungulate (http://www.ultimateungulate.com/), and an accomplished knitter. He’s also a passionate supporter of saola conservation, and he has made and donated to the Saola Foundation some remarkable knitted Saolas, to help raise support for our work.

We are deeply grateful to Brent for his donation of these exquisite, original works of art. Our goal is to leverage his generosity into at least $2.000 raised for saola conservation through the auction. Your participation will be much appreciated! For American bidders, any winning bid over a fair market value of $75 is tax-deductible.

We will use the funds to build on the excellent momentum the Saola Foundation has established since our public launch in September.With generous seed-funding from several supporters, in just a few months we’ve developed into a fully functional organization, with an outstanding executive team, technical team, Board of Directors, Advisory Council and volunteers (see: https://www.saolafoundation.org/meet-our-team)

Next step is putting this team to work making a significant contribution to saving saola. Your partnership and support will be vital. Here’s a fun way you can help – and get something wonderful in return!

Bid now by clicking below on your choice of saola to adopt, or by visiting the auction web page: https://www.saolafoundation.org/holiday-auction

March 2 2020

Why I believe in Saola conservation

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Notes from the field on the status of Saola in 2020

Rob Timmins, Saola Foundation Chief Technical Advisor, March 2020

Rob is one of the world’s leading authorities on wildlife in mainland southeast Asia. Specifically, he is the world’s most experienced wildlife surveyor in the Saola’s range of the Annamite Mountains. Over the past 25 years, Rob has been involved in the discovery or rediscovery of several species of elusive birds and mammals in the Annamite Mountains and Indochina more widely. He is applying his expertise to guide the search for Saola in the Lao PDR.

One of the first questions many supporters ask me is, Do I think there is still a chance to save Saola? My answer is a definite “yes”, and I’d like to explain why, based on evidence from the field.

The most recent verified physical evidence of a living wild Saola is a photograph taken in 2013 by an automatic camera-trap in Vietnam. More recently, in 2018, researchers found a trophy of a dead Saola on the wall of a hunter’s house near a national park in Vietnam, from an animal which was reportedly killed in 2016. Additional evidence of the persistence of Saola, in areas we have identified as having a high probability of their continued survival, is the continued detection of other hunting sensitive species, such as Sambar, Large-antlered Muntjac and Hog Badger. Scientific logic dictates that if these species, which are also highly susceptible to wildlife snaring, and which are targeted by wildlife poachers, have not yet been extirpated, then the same may be true for Saola (a species which is seldom specifically targeted by poachers, since it has little value in the wildlife trade). Credible reports of continued Saola presence continue to be received from multiple areas, the most promising of which are in areas where conditions suggest high likelihood of continued Saola presence.

Based on evidence collected to-date, especially the paucity of evidence from systematically collected field data and the severity and extent of snaring, I estimate that perhaps less than 100 Saolas remain in the wild, scattered as individuals throughout the Annamite Mountains. This means that the density of Saola (i.e., individuals/km2) is minuscule, with a similarly miniscule chance of detecting any one individual, without an intensive, persistent search effort. In the dense tropical forests where Saolas live, the hoofprints, nibbled leaves, and dung piles they leave are very difficult to identify with certainty, and are easily overlooked by even the most experienced wildlife trackers. Camera-traps, a valuable monitoring tool, rely on the probability of an individual crossing within the path and range of a sensor, a few metres square in most cases. The odds of detection by any single camera trap are extremely low for a species at such low density, and which lives in such dense habitat. In this current effort, finding our first Saola is akin to looking for a needle in a hundred haystacks, blindfolded, and without the aid of a magnet! The good news is that once that first individual has been found, we can rapidly advance our ability to find subsequent Saolas, by monitoring that individual, to learn from its behavior, by documenting the characteristics of the signs it deposits (hoofprints, feeding signs, dung), and by collecting dung samples that could be used to train scent detection dogs.

The paucity of evidence of wild Saola, a symptom of the species’ general elusiveness coupled with its current rarity, represents a major risk to this species’ survival. Increasingly, some donors are reluctant to provide the resources necessary for an adequate Saola detection effort because…there has been no recent Saola detection. This is a potentially fatal Catch-22 for Saola –it risks manifesting a self-fulfilling prophecy of Saola’s extinction.

Instead, determination, courage and hope are needed, while Saola still has time. And I am convinced sufficient time remains. All we need is the support and resources to get this done.

The last camera-trap photo of a Saola was taken in 2013. The individual pictured here was detected in Lao PDR, 1999

A trophy of a Saola killed in 2016

Why is it not too late?

The Saola is on the precipice of joining an infamous group of species that have been hunted to extinction, including the Dodo, Stellar’s Sea Cow, Great Auk, Passenger Pigeon, Caribbean Monk Seal and, closer to the Saola’s home, Kouprey. However, human intervention has spectacularly averted the extinction of some other species. Madagascar’s Pink Pigeon is a classic example; so close to extinction in the 1990’s that only 10 individuals remained in the world. Captive breeding and reintroductions resulted in a steady recovery, and in 2018, Pink Pigeons were down listed to Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Arabian Oryx is another example, a species which was declared extinct in the wild in the early 1970s. A small captive population of Arabian Oryxes were used to restore the species in the wild, and Arabian Oryx has made the extraordinary leap from extinct in the wild to today being classed as only Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.

Saola can be the next spectacular success story. To save Saola, we need global support, and we need it now. Detecting and capturing the remaining Saolas will require a highly intense search effort. If we concentrate resources in a smart search strategy, using the best of local indigenous knowledge and international expertise, I am confident we can find them. But to succeed, we need sufficient support.

Please, consider donating and join our cause.