Help Bring Wildlife Back to Angkor Forest

While pileated gibbons are the flagship species for our project in Angkor, we ultimately aim to reintroduce a diverse cross-section of native species and release other animals when the circumstances suit. Leopard cats (Prionailurus bengalensis) are the latest addition to Angkor’s forest! This is the first time this species has been released by our project in Angkor. These small cats are very rare in Angkor, although our Government partner APSARA did previously capture a photograph of one on the camera traps they use to monitor wildlife within the Complex.

Agee is a male leopard cat that we hand raised at our Wildlife Release Station in Koh Kong Province after he was rescued by Wildlife Alliance rangers from Stung Proat station in the Cardamoms. It was not appropriate to release him at that site because he is a predator and started hunting other animals we released there. In October we paired him with a female from Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre and took them both to the Angkor Temple Complex for acclimation in the new release enclosure recently built at Twee-er Dai Chnang for the fourth and final pair of gibbons that will be released in Angkor. Since they had not yet completed rehabilitation at Phnom Tamao, we decided to make good use of it in the meantime. We also took a pair of Oriental pied hornbills to Angkor at the same time.

We released the leopard cats on December 2, 2020. They are clearly surviving without any problem as they have not returned for the food we continue to place for them each evening but the camera traps placed around to monitor released animals and other wildlife have captured photos of them. The pair will add to the genetic diversity of whatever small wild population of leopard cats may exist. We expect to release the hornbills sometime early in the New Year.

This has been an eventful period for wildlife reintroductions in Ankgor and in addition to these new species, we transferred the fourth pair of gibbons, Bakheng (male) and Santamea (female), from Phnom Tamao to Angkor on December 16, 2020. They are now acclimatizing to the new environment in the release enclosure. Like humans, each individual animal takes its own time to adjust to major changes, so the acclimatization period varies. The team will monitor the pair closely and they will be released when deemed ready, likely late next year.

Thank you for your donations to help bring wildlife back to Angkor. Happy holidays and best wishes for the New Year.