In May of this year, the Eyes on Leuser project team trudged up Sumatra’s northern-most mountains with video camera equipment in hand, hoping to capture rare and cryptic species for the world to see. Already the camera trapping initiative, dubbed Eyes on Leuser, has taken incredible footage in the region’s imperiled lowland rainforest, but the group hoped now to capture mountain endemics.
Leuser Forest (Photo: BPKEL)
The video below highlights their efforts with over twenty distinct mammals and birds, including nine that are threatened with extinction and four others that are listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN Red List. Notably the initiative captured the Sumatran hog badger, which may be a unique species endemic to the island; the Aceh pheasant; the Sumatran serow; and high-living Sumatran tigers at 2,300 meters (7,545 feet).
Last month, scientists, also using camera traps, confirmed that a small population of Sumatran rhinos still inhabits the Leuser ecosystem. But Leuser is under incredible pressure due to logging, monoculture plantations like palm oil, poaching, roads, and encroachment into protected areas. The forest is the last place on Earth where orangutans, elephants, tigers, and rhinos still survive in the same habitat, though all species are considered Critically Endangered.
You can watch the video at the Southeast Asia Campaign Youtube Channel
Sumatran tiger (Photo:Arddu)
Animals in the video (in order of appearance)
- Southern pig-tailed macaque (Macaca nemestrina), Vulnerable
- Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus), Critically Endangered
- Aceh pheasant (Lophura hoogerwerfi), Vulnerable
- Sumatran peacock-pheasant (Polyplectron chalcurum scutulatum), Least Concern
- Sumatran hog badger (Arctonyx hoevenii), Near Threatened
- Yellow-throated marten (Martes flavigula), Last Concern
- Sun bear (Ursus malayanus), Vulnerable
- Banded linsang (Prionodon linsang), Least Concern
- Long-billed partridge (Rhizothera longirostris), Near Threatened
- Roll’s partridge (Arborophila rolli), Least Concern
- Red-billed partridge (Arborophila rubrirostris), Least Concern
- Masked palm civet (Paguma larvata), Least Concern
- Binturong (Arctictis binturong), Vulnerable
- Asian golden cats (Pardofelis temminckii), Near Threatened
- Marbled cat (Pardofelis marmorata), Vulnerable
- Cream-coloured giant squirrel (Ratufa affinis), Near Threatened
- Shiny whistling thrush (Myophonus melanurus), Least Concern
- Brown-winged Whistling Thrush (Myophonus castaneus), Near Threatened
- Common muntjac (Muntiacus muntjak), Least Concern
- Sumatran serow (Capricornis sumatraensis), Vulnerable
- Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae), Critically Endangered
Source: Mongabay.com
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