Earlier this year PRCF expanded its efforts to explore and understand the wildlife status in the uncharted, forested mountain ranges between two of our project sites —The Batang Toru Forest Ecosystem (BTFE) and the Hadabuan Hills-Dolok Simalalaska Landscape (HHDSL). These strongholds house populations of critically endangered Sumatran Tigers, Tapanuli Orangutans, Siamang and Agile Gibbons, and numerous other species. Yet little attention has been given to the mountainous forests that straddle the two landscapes. Our team hopes to fill this knowledge gap.
Led by Dr. Gregory McCann, an anthropologist with over 15 years of camera trapping experience throughout SE Asia, the team set out to investigate one of these “unknown”—scientifically—ranges, what we are calling the Lobugala-Negara Landscape (LNL), designated as such based on the northern and southernmost villages found within the landscape, respectively.
To date, no other NGO has set up camera traps in this area, and therefore nothing but anecdotal reports exist about its mammal community, which, based on the high quality of the forest that we inspected firsthand, holds great promise. PRCF is about to shed important light on an unknown and biologically exciting area—the likes of which are fast-disappearing in Southeast Asia in particular, and indeed the rest of the world.
16 camera traps were installed in prime areas to shed light on the mystery of this long-ignored landscape. LNL could potentially hold globally important populations of species listed by the IUCN as Critically Endangered, including Sumatran Tiger, Helmeted Hornbill, Sunda Pangolin, Siamang Gibbon, and many other species listed as Endangered; Siamang gibbons were heard calling most days spent in the field, with their songs absent only during heavy rain. That the area has never before received any form of conservation attention is both concerning and exciting.
Our team launched a reconnaissance survey in this area as LNL appears to be a logical transit point for Sumatran tigers migrating between BTFE and HHDSL, and could very well be a location of resident tigers itself—a hypothesis supported by January 2025 semi-structured interviews with local people living on the periphery of the landscape
In addition, LNL will likely prove itself to harbor significant populations of Sunda Clouded Leopard, Asiatic Golden Cat, Marbled Cat, Sun Bear, Agile Gibbon, Malayan Tapir, small carnivores, and much more. This effort was, therefore, the first step in what will be a larger mission to secure linkage between vitally important landscapes that are largely separated by human agricultural and infrastructure projects. PRCF understands, with ample experience, that these challenges can be mitigated and solved.
You can read part II of Dr. McCann’s field journals here.
