A camera-trapping study has confirmed that the snowcapped Hkakaborazi landscape in northern Myanmar is a crucial haven for large mammals.
The research team deployed 174 cameras in the forests and mountain slopes and interviewed local villagers, detecting 40 large mammal species overall.
Species included evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered species, such as Chinese red pandas, dholes, Shortridge’s langurs and Mishmi takins.
The authors recommend a southern extension of a national park boundary to protect forests that are risk of being lost due to agricultural expansion and overhunting.
The Hkakaborazi landscape at the northern tip of Myanmar is dominated by precipitous snowcapped peaks that tower over rainforest-cloaked slopes and valleys below. Rugged and remote, the region is home to Southeast Asia’s highest mountain, Hkakabo Razi, which rises to 5,881 meters (19,295 feet) close to where the borders of Myanmar, India and China meet. The landscape is also a haven for large mammals, including globally threatened species such as Chinese red pandas (Ailurus styani), clouded leopards (Neofelis nebulosa) and Shortridge’s langurs (Trachypithecus shortridgei), according to findings of a camera-trapping study recently published in Global Ecology and Conservation.
