TPO - At the Center for Rescue, Conservation and Development of Creatures in Cuc Phuong National Park, 10 baby Owston's civets have been bred in captivity after a period of mating, opening up the opportunity to restore the population and release this extremely rare animal into the wild.
The ten healthy civet pups are the result of a mating process that began in late 2023 when four female and eight male civets were brought to the breeding area for mating at Cuc Phuong National Park.
This result is considered by conservationists as the greatest success ever in the conservation of the Owston's civet. At the same time, this is also an important premise, bringing hope for the restoration of the Owston's civet population in the wild.
The Owston's Civet ( scientific name Chrotogale owstoni ) is a beautiful small carnivore with high ecological value, very rare in the wild. This species has the smallest distribution range in the group of small carnivores in Asia, found only in Vietnam, Laos and a very small part in Southern China.
Owston's civet is listed in the Endangered group of the IUCN Red List in 2016, listed in the list of Endangered, precious, rare species prioritized for protection and the IB list of Decree 84/2021/ND-CP.
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The babies sleep in the box with their mother. |
According to conservationists, the wild population of Owston's civet is in serious decline due to illegal hunting and trade for food and pets. The protection and recovery of Owston's civet has become an important priority in biodiversity conservation in Vietnam and the world .
In 2019, the Save Vietnam Wildlife Center (SVW) in collaboration with the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Department of Forestry and domestic and foreign experts organized a workshop and proposed the Owston's Civet Conservation Strategy 2019-2029, marking the development of the world's first conservation strategy for this species.
The strategy sets a vision for 2050 and sets four specific goals for the next 10 years, including building a healthy, genetically diverse ex-situ population, preventing extinction and providing animals that meet the criteria for repopulating the wild population.
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The civet pups are over a month old. |
To implement this goal, Cuc Phuong National Park has coordinated with SVW to start building a 1.3ha conservation breeding area for Owston's civet in early 2023. The goal is to successfully breed and maintain the stability of at least 50 Owston's civets and begin to restore the population for release into the wild.
SVW has invested in building and completing 350m of fence, 12 animal breeding cages, a biosafety house and renovated 200m2 of housing into a meeting room, office, warehouse and animal feed processing area.
Mr. Le Trong Dat - Deputy Director of the Center for Rescue, Conservation and Development of Creatures, Cuc Phuong National Park shared that the successful breeding of 10 baby Owston's civets from 4 mated pairs has demonstrated the right direction in building a separate area for breeding and conservation of the species. At the same time, this success also proves the experience, knowledge and professionalism of the team that created this miracle.
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An individual civet in the breeding reserve. |
Regarding the management and care of individuals, Mr. Tran Van Truong - Coordinator of Ex-situ Conservation Activities at SVW said that all Owston's civets, including young ones, are monitored 24 hours a day via a camera system.
In addition, minimizing human impact on individuals is also one of the top priorities because with the civet, if the mother detects human impact on her young, she can bite her children or carry them away.
Mr. Nguyen Van Thai - Director of SVW said that this success helps conservationists believe that it is possible to release the Owston's civets back into the wild in the next 3-4 years.
Mr. Thai added that to ensure the effectiveness in implementing the Owston's Civet Conservation Strategy 2019 - 2029, SVW is striving to seek more resources and promote cooperation with domestic units such as the Hanoi Wildlife Rescue Center, Saigon Zoo and Botanical Gardens and state agencies, to cooperate and create maximum conditions for diversifying gene sources for the Owston's civet population in captivity.
In addition to restoring the Owston civet population, experts also said that it is necessary to strengthen measures to deal with illegal hunting cases. Owston civets often eat earthworms, insects and ripe fruits that have fallen on the ground, so they are often caught in animal traps. Many individuals are trapped and rot in the forest because hunters do not check the traps regularly.
According to Mr. Thai, although the illegal hunting and trading of Owston’s civets can be prosecuted, it is still not enough of a deterrent for violators. Therefore, there needs to be stricter sanctions for hunting activities using traps, while at the same time increasing the effectiveness of forest protection patrols.
Source: https://tienphong.vn/sinh-san-duoc-10-ca-the-cay-van-cuc-ky-quy-hiem-post1647424.tpo
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