The U Minh wetlands of southern Vietnam in Ca Mau and Kieng Giang provinces are a degraded, peat-swamp wetland mosaic known to retain several globally threatened species. We deployed intensive, targeted camera-traps across U Minh Thuong National Park and U Minh Ha National Park from December 2019 to May 2020, and from November 2020 to June 2021, respectively. Our aim was to detect threatened otters, wild cats, and pangolins in each protected area, to identify what potential threats they may face, and to inform conservation priorities for park managers. Our results showed that both protected areas harbour significant regionally important populations of globally threatened Sunda pangolins (Manis javanica), and Hairy-nosed otters (Lutra sumatrana). However, Fishing cats (Prionailurus viverrinus) and Large-spotted civet (Viverra megaspila) previously recorded from U Minh Thuong National Park, were not observed. Other than wide-ranging species insensitive to human disturbance (i.e., Common palm civets and Leopard cats), all small carnivores were most active in Melaleuca and swamp/Melaleuca habitats in U Minh Thuong, and both the wetland plantations and disturbed forests of U Minh Ha according to their photographic rates. Human and domestic dogs’ activity periods in both protected areas overlapped strongly with Hairy-nosed otters, which could influence their dispersal abilities and access to resources. Furthermore, dogs in this part of southern Vietnam are often used for hunting, so there is a strong possibility the overlap could lead to deadly interactions as well. Long-term and short-term threats are discussed with relevance to U Minh ecosystem health and future recommendations.

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Wetlands in the Mekong Delta of southern Vietnam support populations of globally threatened species, including Hairy-nosed otter (Lutra sumatrana) and, historically, Fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus). However, protected areas in the southern wetlands have become terrestrial islands, surrounded by aquaculture and agriculture, leading to intensified interactions between humans and wildlife. This research explored different human-wildlife interactions to assess whether they bear potential threats to populations of threatened, wetland-dwelling carnivores such as otters, wild cats, and other small carnivores. 400 semi-structured interviews were conducted in communities living in the buffer zones of two protected areas: U Minh Thuong National Park and U Minh Ha National Park. Our results revealed that fish farmers who live closer to protected area boundaries were more likely to experience conflict with otters, wild cats, and other small carnivores. While the effect of distance to the protected area’s edge on small carnivore impacts were similar in both study sites, prior impacts were found to influence increasingly severe actions of respondents against the impacting wildlife. Overall, most locals had little-to-no knowledge of Fishing cats. This evidence corresponds with other studies which suspect the Fishing cat to be in extremely low densities or potentially extirpated from the wetlands in the last few decades. High prices of wildlife have driven intensive illegal hunting in the region. More people in U Minh Thuong were aware of illegal wildlife trade activities than in U Minh Ha and men tended to have more knowledge and willingness to share about those illicit activities. Our results suggested community engagement activities to tackle human-otter conflict and illegal activities related to wildlife should target mostly men, older villagers, and fish farmers living near the edges of both protected areas. Education and outreach campaigns to improve community awareness of wildlife should target women and young people, who were significantly less aware of wildlife issues in the area overall.

Although the Raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides) has a wide global distribution, little is known about its population in Vietnam. The species is considered rare in Vietnam and few records have been published since 2004; though it is worth noting that all of these records were wildlife trade observations or anecdotal reports. Here we report Raccoon dogs recorded in the illegal wildlife trade via Facebook monitoring from January to December 2020, rescued animals documented in the same province caught by a hunter in August 2020, and camera trap records of the species detected in Pu Mat National Park in May and July 2021. Our camera trap records represent a southern extension of the known range of this species in Vietnam, and is the rst known instance of the Racoon dogs recorded in-situ by camera traps in the country.

Current knowledge of Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) movement ecology has only been recorded from a small island in Singapore, which may not be representative of their range throughout Southeast Asia. Here we provide an update on Sunda pangolin movement ecology from radio telemetry projects in three distinct ecoregions of Vietnam, including a montane region, lowlands, and wetlands. In this study, we radio-tracked 12 pangolins rescued from the illegal wildlife trade and translocated to protected areas where existing conspecific populations had been previously detected. We used an autocorrelated Kernel Density Estimation (aKDE) method to identify the home ranges of each pangolin. Finally, we supplemented our movement ecology analyses with 177 camera trap images to identify activity patterns of Sunda pangolin populations in each location. Activity periods of Sunda pangolins occurred most frequently from 03:00–04:00 (range: 24:00–04:00). The average home range of translocated Sunda pangolins examined throughout our projects in various ecoregions of Vietnam is estimated to be 1.58 km2 and did not vary significantly between sexes, mass, or habitat. However, there was a marked decrease in range size with decreasing size of suitable forest space.