Quang Nam to set up reserve for rare wild ox
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The central province will create a 16,500-hectare reserve to protect the saola, a forest-dwelling bovine found only in Vietnam and in Laos.
Quang Nam Province People’s Committee has announced the official plan to establish a nature reserve to protect saola - a critically endangered wild ox.
The central province will create a 16,500-hectare reserve to protect the saola (Pseudoryx nghetinhensis), a forest-dwelling bovine found only in Vietnam and in Laos.
It will be the second reserve for the animal, after the one in Thua Thien-Hue Province.
Saola was first discovered in 1992 when it became the first large mammal to be discovered anywhere in the world since 1936, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
Saola is a primitive member of the Bovidae family, which includes antelopes, buffaloes, bison, cattle, goats, and sheep.
Though very little is known about the animal, its population is thought to be around 200 in Vietnam, mostly in the mountainous areas between Thua Thien-Hue and Quang Nam Provinces.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the saola's increasing proximity to extinction is only paralleled by two or three other large mammal species in Southeast Asia -- such as the Javan rhinoceros -- according to the experts.
The situation is compounded by the fact there are no populations of saola held in zoos.
