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| Location: |
Asia - South East Asia - Thailand |
| Subject: |
Distribution - Records |
| Species: |
Asian Rhino Species |
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Chaiyaphum Province. McNeely and Cronin, who found only a single track of a Sumatran rhino about three weeks old, reported that poaching was a serious threat to their survival here. To control it, a reserve was established in 1973 under the Wildlife Conservation Division of the Royal Forest Department, and staffed with five forestry graduates and up to 20 local rangers. By 1975 the farmers of Thung Kamang village, established illegally in 1965, had been resettled outside the reserve, but in the last year nine families have moved back. We took a one-week trip to Chaiyaphum to assess the situation, and spent four days in Phu Khio reserve. We surveyed some of the most suitable habitat on foot, and talked with Mr Manop Chomphuchan, Chief of the reserve, about the problem of the Thung Kamang villagers.
In the reserve, tracks of elephants Elephas maximus, gaur Bos gaurus, sambar Cervus unicolor, wild Pig Sus scrofa, and barking deer Muntiacus muntjak were frequent. The elephant trails are wide and well used, intersecting with numerous smaller game trails. We saw signs of tiger Panthera tigris, wild dog Cuon alpinus and Himalayan bear Selenarctos thibetanus; leopard Panthera pardus and sun bear Helarctos malayanus are also reported, but not banteng, Bos javanicus, which are found about 50 km to the north. Gibbons Hylobates lar and langurs Presbytis phayrei and P. cristata were often seen, and macaques Macaca nemestrina and yellow-throated marten Martes flavigula on one occasion each. Bird life was numerous and diverse. However, all wildlife was shy and fled on detecting our presence, an indication of heavy hunting pressure.
In two days of intensive searching in the most suitable rhino habitat we found Sumatran rhino tracks in the four places marked on the map. In two stream beds, both in narrow, steep-sided valleys, we saw four (two in each) which may have been made by at least two different animals, since the track widths were 18.5, 20.0 and 21.0 cm (one could not be measured accurately). Their age varied between 1-2 days and 2-3 weeks. One rhino dropping, found in a large pig wallow along a stream bed, differed from the numerous elephant droppings in being more finely divided and less fibrous.
Phu Khio Reserve has a wide variety of habitat types, including Shorea obtusa-grassland savanna, dry dipterocarp, Pinus merkusii-grassland (a fire climax), bamboo, and dry evergreen forest. The 1413 km? of mountainous dry evergreen forest with many narrow steep-sided valleys is good Sumatran rhino habitat, with a great diversity of low browsing plants along the streams and in forest clearings made by fallen trees. We surveyed only a relatively small area in the north-east part of the reserve but similar habitat is generally distributed in the steeper upland areas, continuing north to Nam Nao National Park and beyond to Phu Kadeung National Park and Phu Luang Reserve. Part of this habitat type is wedged between Phu Kbio and Nam Nao but is designated neither reserve nor national park. The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) controls part of the area, including the Nam Phrom valley and the Chulaphorn Dam area. It seems likely that rhinos use at least the western part of this area, moving between Nam Nao and Phu Khio, and it is essential that it be included as part of the Phu Khio Reserve - it is too far from the Nam Nao park headquarters to be effectively patrolled from that side.
Poaching remains a serious problem. Poachers come mainly in search of gaur, sambar and barking deer - barking deer meat is worth US$4 per kilo but would certainly shoot at a rhino if they came across one since they could easily sell at least the horn for a good price. A hunter in 1970 sold a 600-gram horn at US50 cents per gram - a quarter the price at which we found it for sale in Bangkok. We found many old poachers' camps in the forest, one within two hours' walk of the reserve headquarters and another within 200 metres of a rhino track. There is little attempt at concealment, as patrolling in the reserve is minimal; even if arrested, poachers are difficult to convict, fines are minimal, and jailing, though provided for in the game law, unheard of. Poachers claiming that they are just poor villagers hunting for food to eat, without which they would be forced to become Communist insurgents, get considerable sympathy from the government, while the rangers become scapegoats oppressing the poor farmers.
Poachers come from most of the villages surrounding the reserve, but the village of Thung Kamang, with nine families whose main source of meat comes from hunting, is in the middle of the reserve. They were successfully removed by Forest Department personnel in 1974 but, stimulated by a sympathetic Member of Parliament from their district, moved back in 1975, and are holding out for US$2500 compensation to move out; this the Forest Department, which has offered $500, cannot pay. To make the situation worse, the villagers are supporting their demands with weapons from the insurgents.
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Rhinos in Thailand
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