Posted on 25 June 2021

Listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List, the giant muntjac is the world’s rarest ungulate species with its home range limited to the Annamites mountain range, extending approximately 1,100km through Laos, Vietnam and a small area in eastern Cambodia.
 
“The discovery does not only highlight the global importance of the Virachey National Park but it also re-confirmed Cambodia’s forests in the north-eastern plains landscape as a global biodiversity hotspot of important potential for wildlife recovery. It is an extremely exciting news to all of us,” said Mr. Seng Teak, WWF-Cambodia Country Director.
 
In the central Annamites landscape in Laos and Viet Nam, WWF and other partners repeated camera trapping wildlife monitoring efforts, as well as conducted leech-DNA and e-DNA surveys in the past decade, but could not document the presence of the ungulate species there. WWF congratulates the Cambodian Government’s Ministry of Environment for the recent record of this globally important animal species and for their protected area management effort in the National Park, giving hope the conservation of the species in the regional and the world.

Read more about the discovery of the giant muntjac on the official Facebook Page of the Ministry of Environment.