Siamese Crocodile - Conservation and Management

Conservation and Management

The current situation of C. siamensis represents a significant improvement from the status reported in the 1992 Action Plan (effectively extinct in the wild), but poses major new challenges for quantitative survey and effective conservation action if the species is to survive. While the species remains critically endangered, there is a sufficient residual wild population, dispersed among many areas and countries, to provide a basis for recovery. If the pressures which have caused the virtual disappearance of this species in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia can be controlled or reversed, then the species is likely to survive.

The Siamese crocodile is relatively unthreatening to people (compared to C. porosus), and the possibility of people and crocodiles coexisting in natural settings seems possible. The powerful economic force of the commercial industry based on C. siamensis also needs to be mobilized and channelled for conservation advantage. Considerable effort and action is still required, but the species has a reasonable chance of survival if the necessary actions can be implemented.

Yayasan Ulin (The Ironwood Foundation) is running a small project to conserve an important wetland habitat in the area which is known to contain the crocodiles. Most of them, though, live in Cambodia, where isolated, small groups are present in several remote areas of the Cardamom Mountains, in the southwest of the country, and also in the Vireakchey National Park, in the northeast of the country.

Fauna and Flora International is running a program in the district of Thmo Bang, Koh Kong province, where villagers are financially encouraged to safeguard known crocodile nests. The Araeng River is considered to have the healthiest population of Siamese crocodiles in the world, although this may soon change after the completion of a massive dam in the river. Fauna and Flora international, in collaboration with several Cambodian government departments, is planning on capturing as many crocodiles as possible from this river and reintroducing them in another, ecologically suitable area, before the completion of the dam and the subsequent flooding of the whole area effectively renders their current habitat unsuitable. During the heavy monsoon period of June–November, Siamese crocodiles take advantage of the increase in water levels to move out of the river and onto large lakes and other local bodies of water, returning to their original habitat once water levels start receding back to their usual levels. A smaller population also is thought to exist in the Ta Tay River, and in the district of Thmo Bang. Poaching is a severe threat to the remaining wild population in the area, with the value of small specimens reaching hundreds of dollars in the black market, where they are normally taken into crocodile farms and mixed with other, larger species. The total wild population is unknown, since most groups are in isolated areas where access is extremely complicated. A number of captively held individuals are the result of hybridization with the saltwater crocodile, but several thousand "pure" individuals do exist in captivity, and are regularly bred at crocodile farms, especially in Thailand.

Bang Sida National Park in Thailand, near Cambodia, has a project to reintroduce Siamese crocodile into the wild. A number of young crocodiles have been released into a small and remote river in the park, not accessible to visitors.

The Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center in Cambodia conducted DNA analysis of 69 crocodiles in 2009, and found 35 of them were purebred C. siamensis. Conservationists from Fauna and Flora International and Wildlife Alliance plan to use these to launch a conservation breeding program in partnership with the Cambodian Forestry Administration.

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is working with the government of Lao PDR on a new program to save this critically endangered crocodile and its wetland habitat. In August, 2011, a press release announced the successful hatching of a clutch of 20 Siamese crocodiles. These eggs were then incubated at the Laos Zoo. This project represents a new effort by WCS to conserve the biodiversity and habitat of Laos’ Savannakhet Province, promotes conservation of biodiversity for the whole landscape, and relies on community involvement from local residents.