Cardamom
1. Camera Trap
A total of 1854 trap days are from 15 camera traps in Central Cardamom Mountain (CCM) and 14 camera traps in Southern Cardamom Mountain (SCM). One location in CCM, of the 15 cameras, has camera multifunction and the last working day of camera trap was used to calculate number of trap-day.
Table 1: Number of trap-day in CCM and SCM Number of trap day
Site 1, SCM (14Cameras) Site 2, CCM (15 Cameras)
Sample 1 515 451 966
Sample 2 462 426 888
977 877
TOTAL OF TRAP DAY 1854
Data were recorded from 15 camera traps over 877 trap days; cover an area of 15km2 started from April to mid-June 2016. Site number 19 and 20 in Central Cardamom Mountain (UTM of 0311545, 1347986 and 0314260, 1345880 at the elevation of 569 m and 548 m asl), recorded two individual of bears (Fig 2). While in Southern Cardamom Mountain, data recorded from 14 camera traps over 977 trap days; cover an area of 11km2 started from March to early June 2016 showed that there were three sites which had been visited by bears. The number of the camera trap sites are 10, 11 and 14 which UTM are 0335393, 1269407; 0337218, 1269407 and 0335985, 1267257. The camera traps were set in elevation of 160 m to 263 m asl in the habitat of evergreen forest (Fig 3).
Figure 2: Camera trap map in Southern and Centre Cardamom Mountain.
The habitats of the two sites in Central Cardamom Mountain (CCM), in which Sun bears were recorded, are evergreen forest located in a distance of 3.5 km from each other. The first record of bear in CCM was on 23 April, 2016 (sample period 1) in sample station number 19 and the second record was on 25 May, 2016 (sample period 2) in sample station number 19 (Fig 4).
The three sample stations in Southern Cardamom Mountain which had been visited by Sun bear were in the distance of 2 km from each other and the habitats are evergreen forest. The first record of Sun bear was on 19 March, 2016 which is a day after camera trap was set up in sample station 10. In the site, there are signs of Sun bear and on 09 May, 2016 the same individual of Sun bear which visited pervious time was appear again to climb the tree in front of the camera (Fig 5). No other species was recorded in this sample station beside Sun bear. There is a saltlick in sample station 14 and it is where the second record of Sun bear was recorded in the survey on 14 April, 2016 and the other record of Sun bear was on 22 April, 2016. The two records were two individual of Sun bear because one bear is bigger than another (Fig 6). The other sample station in which bear was recorded is in sample station number 11 and the camera in the sample station was error so there were only three pictures of Sun bear’s back were recorded on 19 May, 2016.
Figure 3: (a) bears in sample station 19, (b) bear in sample station 20 in Central Cardamom Mountain (CCM).
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Figure 4: (a) First attempt of Sun bear to trap B and, (b) Second attempt of Sun bear in Southern Cardamom Mountain (SCM).
Figure 5: Sun bear in picture (a) is bigger than the Sun bear in picture (b).
Other Species Records
One of the most abundance and active species in the survey was palm civet and they are the first specie recorded in most of the sample station. There are only 877 trap-days in CCM while 977 trap-day in SCM (Tab 1). As the result from the camera trap showed there are 24 species were recorded in CCM while only 18 species were recorded in SCM including Sun bear (Tab 2, and 3). Species data records between sample stations A and B are different both in number of species and days of first record (Fig 7). In total, 26 species were recorded in this survey including birds. In which there are two endanger species, five vulnerable species, two nearly threaten species and other least concern species (Fig 8, 9). A group of 4 Asian Elephants with one cub were captured only in SCM during the first sample period.
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Figure 6: Number of days after sample station set-up until each species is detected for the first time of the sample station (first sample period only).
Figure 7: Another significant species were recorded in this study: Asian-Elephant and Dhole.
Figure 8: (a) Clouded leopard (b) Sambar deer.
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Figure 9: (a) Marbled Cat (b) Asian Golden Cat.
2 Hair Snag
Type A sample station
Type A trap use 20-25m of wire which is weigh about 6-7 kg so only one or two of this wire can be carried daily during the survey. It is quite heavy and hard to transport them across the forest and sometime it caused us injury because the path in the forest is so difficult sometime there are a falling log on the road so we have go under the log or make new pathway. Moreover, this kind of sample station take a lot of effort to set it up and it took about 1 hour to make a proper type A sample station (including setting up and testing camera trap, hanging bait, and clear some plants). Of the 29 sample station (14 Type A sample station and 15 Type B sample station), there are 7 type A and B sample station in Southern Cardamom Mountain and 7 type A and 8 type B sample station in Central Cardamom Mountain. The result of the camera trap show that there is only one type A sample station out of 14 A sample station had recorded an individual of bear which is located in evergreen forest in Central Cardamom Mountain. By the recording video of the bear in camera trap number 19 shows that the bear come into the sample station in day time and touch the hair snag (Fig 10). The wire had been observed and check for bear fur unfortunately there is not any fur for DNA analysis (Fig 11).
Figure 10: Bear get into type A sample station and touch the wire in CCM.
Figure 11: Checking up for bear fur using white envelope.
Type B sample station
Type B sample station trap use 5-10 m of wire which is weigh about 1-2 kg so it not as heavy as type A sample station. Four or five of this can be handled a day during the survey because it is light and divided into small pieces. For setting up this B sample station is easier than A sample station and took only about half hour. Out of the 15 sample station (7 type A sample station and 8 type B sample station) one individual of sun bear was identified through visiting site 19 at night time in Central Cardamom Mountain. This site was set up about 25 m from old trail to avoid stolen but the effected of pork’s baited hanging at 2 m height in the trap can attract the bear attention to get into the site. Through the recoding of two 30 seconds video clips, show that the bear smell baited and come in the trap. And it a bit shy to the camera traps that it turns back to camera (Fig 12).
Figure 12: Video record of Sun bear gets into type B sample station in Central Cardamom Mountain.
In Southern Cardamom Mountain, Out of the 14 camera traps (7 type A sample station and 7 type B sample station) there were three sites which was visited by bears. These three sites were located in the distance of about 2 km from each other. The numbers of the sample stations are 10, 11 and 14 located in evergreen forest which set up in elevation of 160 m to 269 m asl. In sample station 11 the camera was an error so the record is in image file not in video. In sample station 10, an individual bear came in trap for two separate times in March and May. There was a saltlick in sample station 14 and two individual were identified visiting one a night time and
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another in day time (Fig 13). In type B sample station, there was no bear fur obtained from hair snagging.
Figure 13: Sun Bear gets into type B sample station in Southern Cardamom Mountain.
Table 4: Summary data of the survey
Sample Station Type A Sample Station Type B
Number of camera trap days 872 982
Number of bear detections 1 7
Number of hairs sampled 0 0
Set up time > 1 hour < half hour
Weight of wire 6-7 kg 1-2 kg
Quality of video for individual identification
None None
Discussion
In Southern Cardamom Mountain Sun bear videos were recorded in average once per 195.4 trap-days compared to 438.5 trap-days in Central Cardamom Mountain. However there is no Asiatic black bear was recorded in this study because Asiatic black bear is less abundance than Sun bear and it needs more survey effort to capture a black bear photo [13]. A report of 8,236 trap-nights in Southern Cardamom Mountain showed that Sun bear was detected from 19 location which there was only a single detection of black bear out of 67 locations [14]. To capture an Asiatic black bear photo requires an average of 874 ± 749 trap-days while it needs only 407 ± 307 trap-days to capture Sun bear photo [13]. However Sun bear was captured a day after setting up camera trap in sample station 10 in Southern Cardamom Mountain where is fewer disturbances, near water source, abundance of food and there are bear’s sign have recorded. From the comparison of type A trap and B trap in this study show that one of A trap had recorded bear and 4 of B traps had recorded bear out of 28 camera trap (One type A camera trap had multifunction in CCM). Therefore chance of recorded bear in A trap is about 4% and in B trap is about 14%.
These indicated that B trap is much better than A trap and B trap is less destructive than A trap because A trap uses a lot of wire to surround an area of 25 m2. Through review of recorded video B trap record, total video of 191 of 23 species while A trap record only 125 videos of 21 species.
However in some A traps also recorded many videos which is based the habitat of the location.
Normally the locations which is less disturbance, far deep in the forest, near the water source and remain good condition of forest, got more species recorded. In A trap, there is only two common species which come across the traps and searching for the bait for a long time in front of camera trap, wild pig and civet. However civet often came to remove the bait and sometime macaque also remove the bait. Beside this Sun bear and porcupine just come across. And some other species like muntjac and elephant just come to visit and smell the wire. For B trap is less destructive so many species come across the traps due to the recording videos. In 3 of B traps there are 6 video records of Sun bear while in A trap is only one video record of Sun bear. Moreover video record
showed that Sun bear was a bit shy to camera trap but they spent more time to smell the bait in the B trap.
In Central Cardamom Mountain, there is a type A camera trap had multifunction.
Therefore, there are 6 A traps and 8 B traps were recording wildlife for the study. The result showed that there is only one type A trap and B had recorded bear. Due to the video record in A trap, Sun Bear just come across for only 15 seconds among the video length 30 seconds. Bear come sixteen days after the trap had been set up and before it came the bait in the central of the trap had been already removed by civet. While in B trap, Sun Bear come for nearly a minute which is two videos were recorded. In this time Sun Bear is the first individual that come the trap at night time around 8:20 pm, after the trap had been set up for nine days. It is first come because of the smell of the pork bait and it was shy to the light of camera trap that why it sit and turn its back to camera. And it turned to smell the bait in front camera again unfortunately it did not stand on its hind leg to approach the bait because bait is hanging to high about 2 m height. Therefore, there is no clear image of its chest mark for identification of individual. Chest marks of Sun bears are only visible when bears are standing on their two hind legs not waking or standing on all 4 legs [15]. The degree difficulties to access of bait effect number bear video records and if the bait set properly at a suitable height, the photographic opportunity for capturing chest mark may increase [16]. To have a clear chest mark or a high quality photograph of bears chest mark, is photograph of bear’s standing with their forelimbs hanging down [17].
In Southern Cardamom Mountain, there are 7 type A traps and 7 B traps were set up in the study. The result showed that there are only 3 type B traps had recorded bears in the survey and none of A trap had captured any video record of Sun bears. Sample station 10 of B trap showed that bear is the only species which visited the trap in both period of sample (first sample period is in March-April, second sample period in April-May). In sample station 10, Sun bear came at night time on March 20, 2016 for the first time which is a day after the trap had been setting up. It came and stood its hind leg to smell perfume which had been applied on the tree. But it did not turn its face to camera trap so there is no clear chest mark of this bear. Then the flash light had changed its attention so the Sun bear came to camera trap and run away. For the second, bear came at day time on May 9, 2016, which 13 days after the camera had checked up and bait had changed, and 40 days from its first sighting to the trap. This time it came to climb up the tree in front the camera trap to remove the bait. There is no video of how it climbed down but there are some fresh claw marks behind the tree. Again there is no chest mark for identify individual and bear in these two video records had similar size. Therefore, Sun bear cannot be distinguished whether it is one or two individual in this sample station 10. In sample station 11, there is another captured of bear but not in video because there is some error in the camera trap. However, it was capture as image file of the bear’s back. In sample station 14, bears came in two different times in first sample period. The first it came at night time on April 14, 2016, which is 26 days after the trap had set up.
In the video, Sun bear was walking around, searching for food and then walking away. Another Sun bear came at daytime on April 22, 2016. Due to the video of this sample station, the record had started 3-4 seconds before a small bear running across about 4-5 second. There could be another individual of bear had running across to started the camera trap. Therefore, this might be two individual had running across this site. Moreover, the two records showed that one Sun bear is quite bigger than the other one so there are two different individuals. In Southern Cardamom Mountain, there is also no clear chest mark for individual analysis but at least two bear were recorded in this site.
Four Sun bears had been identified in this study which covers an area of 26 km2, there are two Sun bears in each sites SCM and CCM. There are only four Sun bears can identified from one type A trap and three type B traps, based on size and outside appearance and it would be more accurate and individual if there are clear chest mark for individual identification. To have a clear chest mark bear need to stand up to approach the bait therefore bait is really important tool. In this study, Sun bears did not stand on their two hind leg may cause by three reasons, (1) the bait had removed away by other species, (2) the bait is hanging too high to approach and (3) bear getting shy of camera trap flash light. For the next study, bee or honey should be used as the bait instead of fish and Prohok because civet is one the most sensitive to this kind of bait. Honey has been used as bait and it attract only bear species [16]. In order to compare A trap and B trap, number of
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the video records were counted. The result showed that numbers of video records in the camera trap are different between A trap and B trap. There is only 1 record of Sun bear in A trap but there are 7 records of Sun bear in B trap, Therefore B trap is much working well for capture bear through camera trap.
For hair snagging, B trap was made to test the behavior of Sun bears to rub their back on the tree. Through reviewing the 7 records of B trap, two records showed that bears smell the perfume which had been apply on the tree and they did not rub their back on the tree. However it needs more effort to study about this kind of behavior. None of them had touch the wire among 6 video records of B trap except trap in sample station 10, which bear came to climb up the tree but there is no fur or hair for DNA analysis. In A trap, even though it need a lot of effort to make and carry about 6-7 kg wire in the forest and the video record showed that Sun bear had to go under and touch the wire (Tab 5.1). But DNA identification cannot be made because there is no hair in the wire which may be caused by the wire is not good or capable enough to get hair sample. Wires in the study it is quite big and heavy which is normally use as fence around the house. Moreover it is hard to bend or it is not flexible which cannot get animal hair. Trigger clip should be used for hair snag because it is working well in the survey of wolverine ([18]. Other survey of grizzly bear mention that two parallel bard wire at 25 cm and 50 cm height provided more hair samples especially for young bear and smaller species however hair sample may double on the same individual which may cost more on genetic analysis [18].
Conclusions
Two sites in Cardamom Mountain were selected based on the 5km distance from the villages and roads in which 14 camera trap were set up in Southern Cardamom Mountain at elevation about 200m asl and other 15 camera trap in Central Cardamom Mountain were set up at the elevation about 500 asl. Even though it was in different elevation four Sun bears were recorded from the survey sites. However there is no Asiatic black bear was recorded in either site, showing that they are less abundant than Sun bear and it needs more effort to capture black bear photo. It is supposed to have more individual of bear in Southern Cardamom Mountain, if there are chest mark and hair of bear for individual identification. Two Sun bears of Central Cardamom Mountain were identified from two video records while two Sun bears in Southern Cardamom Mountain were identified from six records. Moreover, there are two endangered species: Elephant and D hole, and many significant species were record in this study which is an evidence of the biodiversity in the areas. For camera trapping, bears did not stand on their hind leg to approach the bait may be caused by three reason: bait had been removed by other species; bait set up too high to approach; and bear get shy to camera trap flash. For hair snagging, type B sample station showed that Sun bear did not have behavior to rub their back on the tree like grizzly bear that is why there is no hair was sampled. In only one record of type A trap, Sun bear touched the wire but there is no hair sample which may be caused by unsuitable wire.
This study was necessarily limited to two sites in Cardamom Mountain due to time and financial constraints. As there are a lot of protected areas in Cambodia in which many of protected area had recorded bear signs. Therefore, additional studies are needed to determine the conservation status on Sun bear in Cambodia. Law enforcement in CCM is needed because there are many groups of hunter, trap and logging during the survey. As bear farms in Loas expand illegally, poaching bear incentive had increase and number of live bear seized is high, therefore law enforcement and raising awareness on bear and trade of bear in protected areas and provinces across the border are needed. Moreover the study of human behavior toward using bear part should take place in order to get attention and message to policy maker. As the study also is limited to two months periods so there are only four Sun bear found in this study and no black bears were recorded. Even though these two species share the same habitat, black bear is less abundant than Sun bear. To estimate bear population, remote sampling is one of a range of tool, however bait play important role to attract and make bears stand on their hind legs in sample station for capture bear chest mark through camera trap. Therefore, scent lure, a liquid or viscous substance draw animals by the sense of smell should be use because it is not intended to be consumed like bait. Honey also should be best bait because it had been reported there were no
undesirable events such as removal of bait by other species in the study of evaluation of camera-trap designs for photographing chest marks [16]. Degree of accessing bait provides differences numbers of chest mark photographic. For hair snagging, a tool of genetic sampling, a better quality wire should be used for Sun bear hair which is short and sleek, while double parallel wire should be tested in order to improve the numbers of hair sample collected in the wild. Moreover tape should be used instead of wire because it is lighter and more accessible in the forest.
However, there are many methods for genetic sample for instance, the study of mammals using leeches should be one of an alternative choice, as leeches are so abundance in Cardamom Mountains and leeches can store concentrated blood for several months [19].
Acknowledgements
Writing paper was a process of learning step by step and from many people. To complete the paper, guidance, encouragement and supporting from other people was importance. Firstly, I would like to give my best respect to my kindly supervisor, Brian Crudge, Research Programme Manager at Free the Bears, for his support, guidance and encouragement. He recommended much idea to help me since the beginning of writing, some documents and spent his valuable time for preparing field trip to Cardamom Mountain. In addition, he gave some comments for my thesis. I really appreciate the support provided to me during thesis writing. Then, I thank my co-supervisors: ChhinSophea, ChanthaNasak and Neang Thy, Lecturers at Royal University of Phnom Penh for providing comments and documents and facilitating field trip. I also express many thank to Dr. IthSaveng, Program Manager, Center for Biodiversity Conservation (CBC), Mr. Sam Leslie and FFI for his supporting and encouragement. My sincere appreciation also goes to Free the Bears and Perth Zoo Wildlife Conservation Action grant for scholarship and funding to conduct the research. Without their support, my thesis could not be completed smoothly. I also give much appreciation to Forestry Administration for permitting me to work in my study areas.
In addition, thank you to Mr. San Satya, MSc. student in biodiversity conservation, Mr. Lim, and, local guides in Chi Phat and OuSaom for helping me for data collection and also thanks to Lim Thona at Free the Bear and Roth Vichet at RUPP for helping me with data entry. I am grateful to the Center for Biodiversity Conservation (CBC), Fauna & Flora International (FFI) for equipment provided to all students and Faculty of Science, Royal University of Phnom Penh for providing classroom. Furthermore, I would like to give thanks to all lecturers for their lecturing and giving assistances to complete courses.
Finally, the deep thanks go to Mr.ThunVathana, Director of Prek Leap National College of Agriculture(PNCA),and Lecturers at PNCAfor their effort, encouragement and supporting to make the paper. They always give a warm care and many comments to me whenever I need them.
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