Cat Tien National Park
Encyclopedia
Cát Tiên National Park is an important national park
located in the south of Vietnam
, approximately 150 km north of Ho Chi Minh City
. It has an area of about 720 km² and protects one of the largest areas of lowland tropical rainforest
s left in Vietnam.
The park suffered historically during the Vietnam War
when it was extensively sprayed with herbicide
s like the defoliant Agent Orange
; however, further damage was done by logging
up until the 1980s. To this day these areas have extensive bamboo
and grassland
cover and trees have not yet grown back.
forest, dominated by Dipterocarpaceae
, Fabaceae
and Lythraceae
(especially Lagerstroemia spp.), with 40% of the park comprising bamboo
woodland, and the remaining 10% farmland, wetland
s and grassland. The park fauna included the impressive Javan Rhinoceros
, as it had one of only two populations in the world until poachers shot and killed the last rhino in Cát Tiên in 2010. Asian Elephant
s, Sun Bear
s and Gaur
still persist in the area, whereas banteng, kouprey, and Wild Asian Water Buffalo
no longer occur in Cat Tien. Some accounts also list Indochinese Tiger
s, Leopard
s, Clouded Leopard
s, Dhole
s and Asiatic black bear
s. However, a recent series of surveys did not confirm this. The park also hosts many smaller mammal species, including Yellow-cheeked Gibbon
s, Silvery Langur
s, Crab-eating Macaque
s, Pygmy Slow Loris
, as well as civet
s, mouse deer, and treeshrew
s.
The park also has impressive bird species including:
it protects and the number of species it contains. As well as being a critical reserve for the Javan Rhinoceros
, it also is home to 40 IUCN Red List species, and protects around 30% of Vietnam's species. The park is, however, threatened by encroachment from local communities, illegal logging
and poaching
. In addition, the park is too small for the larger species found inside it. This has led to either their local extinction
or conflict with local people as these animals move beyond the confines of the park. This problem is particularly intense for the park's elephant population, which is prone to wandering and is considered too small to be self sustainable.
Since the early 1990s, partly as a result of the discovery of rhinos in the park, international donor
s and the Vietnamese government began to invest more money in protecting the park and managing the resources of local State Forest Enterprises, nearby and adjoining forests (including Vinh Cuu
Nature Reserve), in co-ordination with the park as a whole. There have been moves to combine a management plan that allows for both traditional park management and some limited resource utilisation by local people, which include the Stieng, Chau Ma (now concentrated in Ta Lai) and Cho'ro minorities.
In 2008 the Forestry Protection Department collaborating with the Endangered Asian Species Trust (UK), Monkey World Ape Rescue(UK) and Pingtung Wildlife Rescue Centre (Taiwan) founded the Dao Tien Endangered Primate Species Centre. The centre focusses on the rescue, rehabilitation and release of the four endangered primates found in Cat Tien (golden-cheeked gibbon, black-shanked douc, pygmy loris and silvered langur), developing Government guidelines for release of primates. The centre conducts informative daily educational tours explaining the centre's work, with a chance to see young rehabilitated gibbons in the trees.
National park
A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or...
located in the south of Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, approximately 150 km north of Ho Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh City , formerly named Saigon is the largest city in Vietnam...
. It has an area of about 720 km² and protects one of the largest areas of lowland tropical rainforest
Rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...
s left in Vietnam.
History
Cát Tiên national park was protected initially in 1978 as two sectors, Nam Cat Tien and Tay Cat Tien. Another sector, Cat Loc, was gazetted as a Rhinoceros Reserve in 1992 upon the discovery of a population of the Vietnamese Javan Rhinoceros, an occasion that brought the park into the world's eye. The three areas were combined to form one park in 1998.The park suffered historically during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
when it was extensively sprayed with herbicide
Herbicide
Herbicides, also commonly known as weedkillers, are pesticides used to kill unwanted plants. Selective herbicides kill specific targets while leaving the desired crop relatively unharmed. Some of these act by interfering with the growth of the weed and are often synthetic "imitations" of plant...
s like the defoliant Agent Orange
Agent Orange
Agent Orange is the code name for one of the herbicides and defoliants used by the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. Vietnam estimates 400,000 people were killed or maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth...
; however, further damage was done by logging
Logging
Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...
up until the 1980s. To this day these areas have extensive bamboo
Bamboo
Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....
and grassland
Grassland
Grasslands are areas where the vegetation is dominated by grasses and other herbaceous plants . However, sedge and rush families can also be found. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica...
cover and trees have not yet grown back.
Biodiversity
Cát Tiên National Park consists of evergreen tropical and deciduousTropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests
The tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forest biome, also known as tropical dry forest, is located at tropical and subtropical latitudes. Though these forests occur in climates that are warm year-round, and may receive several hundred centimeters of rain per year, they have long dry seasons...
forest, dominated by Dipterocarpaceae
Dipterocarpaceae
Dipterocarpaceae is a family of 17 genera and approximately 500 species of mainly tropical lowland rainforest trees. The family name, from the type genus Dipterocarpus, is derived from Greek and refers to the two-winged fruit...
, Fabaceae
Fabaceae
The Fabaceae or Leguminosae, commonly known as the legume, pea, or bean family, is a large and economically important family of flowering plants. The group is the third largest land plant family, behind only the Orchidaceae and Asteraceae, with 730 genera and over 19,400 species...
and Lythraceae
Lythraceae
Lythraceae are a family of flowering plants. It includes about 620 species of mostly herbs, with some shrubs and trees, in 31 genera. Major genera include Cuphea , Lagerstroemia , Nesaea , Rotala , and Lythrum...
(especially Lagerstroemia spp.), with 40% of the park comprising bamboo
Bamboo
Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....
woodland, and the remaining 10% farmland, wetland
Wetland
A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....
s and grassland. The park fauna included the impressive Javan Rhinoceros
Javan Rhinoceros
The Javan Rhinoceros or Lesser One-horned Rhinoceros is a member of the family Rhinocerotidae and one of five extant rhinoceroses...
, as it had one of only two populations in the world until poachers shot and killed the last rhino in Cát Tiên in 2010. Asian Elephant
Asian Elephant
The Asian or Asiatic elephant is the only living species of the genus Elephas and distributed in Southeast Asia from India in the west to Borneo in the east. Three subspecies are recognized — Elephas maximus maximus from Sri Lanka, the Indian elephant or E. m. indicus from mainland Asia, and E. m....
s, Sun Bear
Sun Bear
The sun bear , sometimes known as the honey bear, is a bear found primarily in the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia; North-East India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Southern China, Peninsular Malaysia, and the islands of Sumatra and Borneo.-Description:The sun bear...
s and Gaur
Gaur
The gaur , also called Indian bison, is a large bovine native to South Asia and Southeast Asia. The species is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 1986 as the population decline in parts of the species' range is likely to be well over 70% over the last three generations...
still persist in the area, whereas banteng, kouprey, and Wild Asian Water Buffalo
Wild Asian Water Buffalo
The wild water buffalo also called Asian buffalo and Asiatic buffalo is a large bovine native to Southeast Asia...
no longer occur in Cat Tien. Some accounts also list Indochinese Tiger
Indochinese Tiger
The Indochinese tiger or Corbett's tiger is a subspecies of tiger found in Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand, and Vietnam and formerly in China. Tigers in peninsular Malaysia, formerly classified as Indochinese, have recently been reclassified as a separate subspecies, Malayan tiger Panthera tigris...
s, Leopard
Leopard
The leopard , Panthera pardus, is a member of the Felidae family and the smallest of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera, the other three being the tiger, lion, and jaguar. The leopard was once distributed across eastern and southern Asia and Africa, from Siberia to South Africa, but its...
s, Clouded Leopard
Clouded Leopard
The clouded leopard is a felid found from the Himalayan foothills through mainland Southeast Asia into China, and has been classified as vulnerable in 2008 by IUCN...
s, Dhole
Dhole
The dhole is a species of canid native to South and Southeast Asia. It is the only extant member of the genus Cuon, which differs from Canis by the reduced number of molars and greater number of teats...
s and Asiatic black bear
Asiatic Black Bear
The Asian black bear , also known as the moon bear or white-chested bear is a medium-sized species of bear, largely adapted for arboreal life, which occurs through much of southern Asia, Korea, northeastern China, the Russian far east and Honshū and Shikoku islands of Japan...
s. However, a recent series of surveys did not confirm this. The park also hosts many smaller mammal species, including Yellow-cheeked Gibbon
Yellow-cheeked Gibbon
The yellow-cheeked gibbon , also called the yellow-cheeked crested gibbon, the golden-cheeked crested gibbon or the buffed-cheeked gibbon, is a species of gibbon native to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia....
s, Silvery Langur
Silvery Lutung
The silvery lutung , also known as the silvered leaf monkey or the silvery langur, is an Old World monkey. It is arboreal, living in coastal, mangrove, and riverine forests in Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, and Borneo....
s, Crab-eating Macaque
Crab-eating Macaque
The Crab-eating macaque is a cercopithecine primate native to Southeast Asia. It is also called the "long-tailed macaque", and is referred to as the "cynomolgus monkey" in laboratories.-Etymology:...
s, Pygmy Slow Loris
Pygmy Slow Loris
The pygmy slow loris is a rare species of loris found in the tropical dry forests of Vietnam, Laos, southern China, and east of the Mekong River in Cambodia....
, as well as civet
Civet
The family Viverridae is made up of around 30 species of medium-sized mammal, including all of the genets, the binturong, most of the civets, and the two African linsangs....
s, mouse deer, and treeshrew
Treeshrew
The treeshrews are small mammals native to the tropical forests of Southeast Asia. They make up the families Tupaiidae, the treeshrews, and Ptilocercidae, the pen-tailed treeshrews, and the entire order Scandentia. There are 20 species in 5 genera...
s.
The park also has impressive bird species including:
- Red JunglefowlRed JunglefowlThe Red Junglefowl is a tropical member of the Pheasant family. They are thought to be ancestors of the domestic chicken with some hybridisation with the Grey Junglefowl...
- Green peafowlGreen PeafowlThe Green Peafowl or Javan Peafowl, Pavo muticus is a large Galliform bird that is found in the tropical forests of Southeast Asia...
- Siamese firebacksSiamese FirebackThe Siamese Fireback, Lophura diardi also known as Diard's Fireback is a medium-sized, approximately 80 cm long, pheasant. The male has a grey plumage with an extensive red facial skin, crimson legs and feet, ornamental black crest feathers, reddish brown iris and long curved blackish tail...
(although found elsewhere, these are especially easy to see in the park) - Germain's peacock-pheasant
- orange-necked partridgeOrange-necked PartridgeThe Orange-necked Partridge is a species of bird in the Phasianidae family.It is found in eastern Cambodia and southern Vietnam along the Cambodian-Vietnam border....
- the great, oriental pied and the wreathed hornbills
- bar-bellied, blue rumped, blue winged and other pittaPittaPitta may stand for:*Pittas, a family of tropical birds*Pitta bread *Pitta , an island in the Dodecanese archipelago, in the Aegean Sea...
s - broadbillBroadbillThe broadbills are a family of small passerine birds, Eurylaimidae. The Smithornis and Pseudocalyptomena species occur in sub-Saharan Africa; the rest extend from the eastern Himalayas to Sumatra and Borneo. The family possibly also includes the Sapayoa from the Neotropics and the asities from...
s: including the black & red, dusky and banded species - an endemic sub-species of the red-vented barbetRed-vented BarbetThe Red-vented Barbet is a species of bird in the Ramphastidae family.It is found in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam....
- grey-faced tit babbler
- woodpeckers: including pale-headed, white-bellied, black-and-buff, heart-spotted and the great slaty woodpeckerGreat Slaty WoodpeckerThe Great Slaty Woodpecker is a species of bird in the Picidae family.It is found in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland...
- lesser adjutantLesser AdjutantThe Lesser Adjutant, Leptoptilos javanicus, is a large wading bird in the stork family Ciconiidae. It is a widespread species which is resident breeder in southern Asia from India east to southern China and Java....
birds, various herons and egret species - milky stork and the woolly-necked stork has also been reported in recent years
- a wide variety of resident and migratory waterfowl; although recorded, white-winged ducks may no longer be present in the park
- birds of prey including ospreyOspreyThe Osprey , sometimes known as the sea hawk or fish eagle, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey. It is a large raptor, reaching more than in length and across the wings...
, lesser fish eagle, grey-headed fish eagleGrey-headed Fish EagleThe Grey-headed Fish Eagle is a bird of prey. Like all eagles, it is in the family Accipitridae.Grey-headed Fish Eagle breeds in southern Asia from India and Sri Lanka to Southeast asia...
, crested serpent eagleCrested Serpent EagleThe Crested Serpent Eagle is a medium-sized bird of prey that is found in forested habitats across tropical Asia. Within its widespread range, there are considerable variations and some authorities prefer to treat several of its subspecies as completely separate species. In the past, several...
, collared and other falconetMicrohieraxThe typical falconets, Microhierax, are a genus of bird of prey in the Falconidae family.The world's smallest carnivorous birds are the Black-thighed Falconet found throughout Southeast Asia, and the White-fronted Falconet on the island of Borneo...
s.
Threats
Cat Tien comprises an important reserve in Vietnam, both for the habitatHabitat (ecology)
A habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant or other type of organism...
it protects and the number of species it contains. As well as being a critical reserve for the Javan Rhinoceros
Javan Rhinoceros
The Javan Rhinoceros or Lesser One-horned Rhinoceros is a member of the family Rhinocerotidae and one of five extant rhinoceroses...
, it also is home to 40 IUCN Red List species, and protects around 30% of Vietnam's species. The park is, however, threatened by encroachment from local communities, illegal logging
Logging
Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...
and poaching
Poaching
Poaching is the illegal taking of wild plants or animals contrary to local and international conservation and wildlife management laws. Violations of hunting laws and regulations are normally punishable by law and, collectively, such violations are known as poaching.It may be illegal and in...
. In addition, the park is too small for the larger species found inside it. This has led to either their local extinction
Extinction
In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...
or conflict with local people as these animals move beyond the confines of the park. This problem is particularly intense for the park's elephant population, which is prone to wandering and is considered too small to be self sustainable.
Since the early 1990s, partly as a result of the discovery of rhinos in the park, international donor
Donation
A donation is a gift given by physical or legal persons, typically for charitable purposes and/or to benefit a cause. A donation may take various forms, including cash, services, new or used goods including clothing, toys, food, and vehicles...
s and the Vietnamese government began to invest more money in protecting the park and managing the resources of local State Forest Enterprises, nearby and adjoining forests (including Vinh Cuu
Vinh Cuu
Vĩnh Cửu is a district of Đồng Nai Province in the Southeast region of Vietnam.As of 2003 the district had a population of 106,067. The district covers an area of 1122 km². The district capital lies at Vĩnh An...
Nature Reserve), in co-ordination with the park as a whole. There have been moves to combine a management plan that allows for both traditional park management and some limited resource utilisation by local people, which include the Stieng, Chau Ma (now concentrated in Ta Lai) and Cho'ro minorities.
In 2008 the Forestry Protection Department collaborating with the Endangered Asian Species Trust (UK), Monkey World Ape Rescue(UK) and Pingtung Wildlife Rescue Centre (Taiwan) founded the Dao Tien Endangered Primate Species Centre. The centre focusses on the rescue, rehabilitation and release of the four endangered primates found in Cat Tien (golden-cheeked gibbon, black-shanked douc, pygmy loris and silvered langur), developing Government guidelines for release of primates. The centre conducts informative daily educational tours explaining the centre's work, with a chance to see young rehabilitated gibbons in the trees.