Botum Sakor National Park

About

Botum Sakor National Park is the largest national park in Cambodia. Situated on the coast of the Gulf of Thailand, Botum Sakor (also spelled "Botumsakor") is a peninsula projecting southwest from the Cardamom Mountains. The national park comprises an area of 1,825.85 km2 (704.96 sq mi) and spans three districts of Koh Kong Province: Kiri Sakor, Botum Sakor and Koh Kong. The park is under the administration of the Cambodian Ministry of Environment, and a small part of the park is included in the Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project (SCRP).

The majority of Botum Sakor National Park is gently sloping lowland covered by evergreen woods and grasslands, emerging in floodplains with mangrove forests and freshwater swamp forests near the coasts. It experiences a tropical monsoon climate and two high tides per day, with a tidal range of approximately 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in). The human population living within Botum Sakor National Park is unknown.

Botum Sakor National Park has rich and varied wildlife, but little on-location research has been published on the biodiversity of the area.

As of 2009, evidence of over 44 mammal species have been found within the national park boundaries, eight of which are of high conservation priority, being listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List, some of them critically. These endangered species includes the Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica), Bengal slow loris (Nycticebus bengalensis), Germain's langur (Trachypithecus germaini), Indian hog deer (Axis porcinus), dhole (Cuon alpinus), clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa), fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus), Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), and pileated gibbon (Hylobates pileatus). The pileated gibbon forms a considerable population and it has been speculated, that the national park might in fact contain as much as 10% of the global population. Many other threatened species have their home in Botum Sakor National Park, in fact over a quarter of the mammalian species here are of conservation interest due to their global status. These include large-toothed ferret-badger (Melogale personata), hairy-nosed otter (Lutra sumatrana), smooth-coated otter (Lutra perspicillata), sambar deer (Rusa unicolor), large-spotted civet (Viverra megaspila) and more. Possibly sun bear and moon bear might be present here as well.

Surprisingly only a relatively small number of amphibian species have been found on the premisses of the national park. The area was expected to hold a large number of species, since the Cardamom Mountains are home to many, there are a broader variety of ecosystems to be found in Botum Sakor. Many of the amphibians found in the park, are of great importance nonetheless. Both the Mortensen's frog (Sylvirana mortenseni) and spine-glanded mountain frog (Quasipaa fasciculispina) are endemic to the south west of Cambodia and the Thailand-owned section of the mountain range.

Most of the many reptiles of Botum Sakor are snakes, including the charismatic king cobra and Malayan pit viper. Snakes are regularly seen and subsequently hacked to death by local residents at local plantations. There is also a small population of Siamese crocodiles in some of the parks creeks. Cambodia in fact retains the world's largest population of this critically endangered species, which was recently (2007) thought to be extinct even. The larger saltwater crocodile is also here, although it is of least concern from a global conservational viewpoint, they are threatened in South-east Asia. In Cambodia, saltwater crocodiles are thought to be restricted to Koh Kong Province. Two threatened species of turtle and one species of tortoise is also found in the Cardamom mountain range.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.