By Janet Raloff
After 3 decades of armed conflict, what remains of Cambodia’s wildlife riches? Plenty, according to a photographic survey begun 2 months ago.
Biologists from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society trained local Cambodians to set up automatic cameras along suspected tiger trails. They mounted the cameras on trees at a height chosen to pick up these big cats. Triggered as animals cross an infrared beam, the cameras have snapped almost 2,000 images, including birds not previously identified in Cambodia and more than 60 types of large mammals.