Rare mysterious beast sighted in Laos

One of the world’s rarest animals, the secretive and mysterious twin-horned saola, has been seen for the first time in a decade, conservationists say.

Villagers in Laos captured a saola in August and took it to their remote community, but it died after a few days in captivity, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said in a statement.

The animal was photographed before its death, the first confirmed record since 1999 when pictures of wild saola were taken by automatic cameras in Laos, said IUCN, a Swiss-based network of scientists and environmental organisations.

No biologist has ever reported seeing a saola in the wild, the group said, and the species is classed as critically endangered, with probably no more than a few hundred surviving.

When they learned of the animal’s capture in the central province of Bolikhamxay Laotian authorities immediately sent a technical team to examine and release it, the IUCN said.

But the weakened animal died shortly after experts arrived.

“The death of this saola is unfortunate. But at least it confirms an area where it still occurs and the government will immediately move to strengthen conservation efforts there,” the statement quoted the provincial conservation unit as saying.

Experts took the saola’s carcass away for preservation, analysis and future study.

“This is the first saola specimen to be so completely preserved,” IUCN said.

Pierre Comizzoli, a veterinarian with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and a member of the IUCN Saola Working Group, said lack of knowledge of the animal’s biology was a major constraint on conservation efforts.

The incident highlights Laos’s importance to global conservation efforts because saola and several other rare species are found almost nowhere else, said Latsamay Sylavong, the national representative for the IUCN Lao Programme.

IUCN said it was unclear why villagers had captured the saola, an animal first discovered in Vietnam near the country’s border with Laos in 1992.