Chhouk, an elephant at the Phnom Tamao wildlife sanctuary, had his leg amputated after being injured by a wire snare. Photo supplied
Cambodia’s ‘silent scourge’ ramps up
Sat, 27 February 2016
Brent Crane
Ten years ago Nick Marx, animal rescue director for Wildlife Alliance (WA), received a call from rangers in Kirirom National Park about a young Asiatic black bear caught in a snare. While trekking to free the cub, his team chanced upon a snare and disarmed it. Then they found another one. Then another and another.
Before even reaching the animal, they had disarmed nearly 200 snares. Marx remembers one dangling the skeleton of a muntjak deer, picked clean and suspended like a haunted house chandelier.
The bear was luckier. They managed to free the cub and transfer it to the Phnom Tamao wildlife sanctuary, where Marx also works. But an infection meant that a few days later its leg had to be amputated.
Marx says he has encountered countless such snare casualties since. “Snaring is the most indiscriminate and cruellest way of hunting there is,” he lamented this week after recounting the bear episode.
“It is an issue that isn’t considered important enough.” But things may be getting worse. A newer, more advanced snare recently found by patrolmen in Mondulkiri province suggests the destructive practice is ramping up here in both technology and scope.
