Saola Tracks #4: Welcome Phoutsakhone, Saola Rapid Response Fund, One Planet Conservation Awareness Partnership
Meet the newest member of the Saola Foundation Board of Directors
We are thrilled to introduce a new member of our Board, Ms. Phoutsakhone Ounchith. Phoutsakhone is a former Head of Office of the IUCN Lao Programme, and during her tenure there she was a strong supporter and advocate of the One Plan to save saola. For more than a decade she has worked with other conservation organizations and the government in Lao PDR to help preserve the country’s natural beauty. Phoutsakhone brings both deep experience and a network of relationships in Lao PDR and elsewhere to help move our work forward. Welcome, Phoutsakhone!
Introducing the Saola Rapid Response Fund
Finding Saola in the wild is a core mission of the Saola Foundation. Yet finding the animals – detecting them – is only the first step. With so few Saolas left, saving the species from extinction could hinge on how, and how quickly, conservationists respond to a detection.
An appropriate response will depend on how and where the detection occurs. If it’s in the forest, the best response will be determined by the type of detection (e.g., camera-trap photo, eDNA detection, or a convincing villager report of a Saola sighting), the location, and if partners are available to help field action. The response could include urgent deployment of snare collection teams, to immediately protect the Saola from poaching. It might also include sending in a research team to confirm the detection, and/or to monitor and learn more about the ecology and behavior of the Saola. With so little known about Saola, every detection holds tremendous potential to significantly improve our understanding of the species, and to build better field capacity to detect more Saolas elsewhere.
If a Saola is unexpectedly found in captivity (as happened in Lao PDR in 2010; see photo below), a priority response would likely be to send an experienced wildlife veterinarian and/or hoofstock care specialist to monitor and care for the animal, and to supervise its transfer to a secure captive holding facility.
The IUCN Saola Working Group has developed sound protocols for how conservationists should respond to a Saola detection under various scenarios. Most potential responses have two things in common: it is essential they be deployed quickly, and yet they are difficult to predict and therefore plan and budget for in advance. In response to this reality, the Saola Foundation has established and is very pleased to announce a new Saola Rapid Response Fund. This initiative’s purpose is to grow and maintain a pool of funds that will be available for use by the Saola Foundation and our partners to quickly respond to a Saola detection. Decisive action could prove pivotal for saving some of the last Saolas.
We are deeply grateful to Germany’s Opel Zoo (https://www.opel-zoo.de/), and in particular the zoo’s director, Thomas Kauffels, for contributing 10,000 euros (approximately US$12,000) to establish the Saola Rapid Response Fund. Zoo Boise in the United States (https://zooboise.org/) has contributed an additional US$1,000 to the fund – part of a most generous US$5,000 donation to the Saola Foundation by Zoo Boise.
Thanks to the generosity and foresight of these two donors, the fund is now established. For more information about the fund, or if your institution would also like to contribute to it, please contact CEO Lorraine Scotson at: info@saolafoundation.org.
One Planet Conservation Awareness partnership
The United Kingdom-based organization, One Planet Conservation Awareness (https://www.oneplanetconservationawareness.com/opca-network), recently reached out to the Saola Foundation to offer their help in expanding awareness of the importance of Saola conservation, and in communicating the work of the Saola Foundation. We are indebted in particular to OPCA’s founders Jordan Gledhill and Jodie Stroud. As one of their first initiatives, OPCA recently produced and posted an interview with Lorraine Scotson and President Bill Robichaud. The interview covers a wide range of Saola conservation issues, and you can watch it here (English sub-titles are available): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSgCNkDPKR8
Finally, our Lao Programs Director, Olay, just returned from a most interesting field survey near Lao PDR’s border with Vietnam. More on that in an upcoming newsletter.
Thanks to the support of Opel Zoo, Zoo Boise, OPCA and many others, we’ve made tremendous progress since the launch of the Saola Foundation just four months ago. We look forward to working with all of you for Saola and Annamites conservation in the days and months ahead!