Kampuchean wildlife – survival against the odds

Interviewed refugees on Thai border. A number of Khmer refugees had seen rhinos, mostly in the remote northern areas. In most cases these were single sightings. It was evidently quite an event to see a rhino. One old hunter said that he had seen only one in his life, in the 1950s. In two areas there had been a number of sightings over a period of time. A hunter from Preah Vihear thought that there had been about 10 individuals in the area in the early years of this decade, but these had been very shy because they were hunted to sell blood and horns as medicine in Laos. One of the Khmer Rouge had been in a group of soliders who had killed and eaten one in the same area in 1982. The other group was in the south of the country in the Elephant Mountains. They seemed to be less threatened. All Khmers who claimed to have seen rhino were emphatic that they were one-horned, not two-horned. - Map shows 8 localities in Kampuchea where rhinos were sighted, in 1967, 1970, 1975, 1980s, 1980-1, 1981, 1982 and 1982.