It was an ordinary day. The date was 1990 and a local Vietnamese hunter had just killed what was suspected to be the very last silver-backed chevrotain. The creature looks like a tiny deer, but it is feared that the creature had become extinct. The small deer-like creature has tiny fangs and had been photographed tiptoeing through a dry lowland forest in southern Vietnam. But, the last known chevrotain was the one that had been killed back in 1990. The creature had been lost to the outside world for a generation and was feared to have become extinct. The small dear-like species with tiny fangs hadn't been photographed since that time. Andrew Tilker, a biologist specializing in Southeast Asian wildlife, said that it was a really cool specie and they still hope that it might someday be found around the same area in Vietnam. The creature is about the size of a large rabbit, with a silver sheen on its rump. The creature also has tusk-like incisors. They lack horns or antlers and the fangs are especially long in males who use them to compete with other males for territory and mates. Well, on November 11, 2019 one of the creatures was finally photographed once again when a camera trap captured a photo of the silver-backed chevrotain.
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| The silver-backed Chevrotain |
Researchers behind the discovery described the find in a paper published November 11, 2019. Camera traps in Vietnam's wet tropical forests have never recorded a sighting, so it may be that these animals prefer a dry, thorn scrub forest habitat. Forests such as this are not common in Vietnam, but there are parts of Vietnam that remind you of a site such as this. The exact location where the sighting took place wasn't recorded so researchers visited communities hoping to find a local hunter or forest expert who might know where the sighting took place. It took some time getting the locals to trust the researchers, but they eventually spent time trying to help them find where the photo might have been taken. Seems that so much wildlife has been vanishing in the past five to ten years due to overhunting and the use of snares to catch the wildlife. Eventually the locals were able to lead the researchers to the site that was seen in the photograph that featured the chevrotain. More camera traps were set up and they were able to gather photos from 280 separate encounters with individual silver-backed chevrotains, although some of these could've been repeat sightings, making it unclear how many now live in the area. Hopefully the illegal hunting and poaching, which is driven by demand for bushmeat in East Asia and has led to the disappearance of animals in intake habitats in Vietnam, will stop the disappearance of animals. This is known as "empty forest syndrome" because wire snare traps can indiscriminately catch and kill nearly everything that walks on the forest floors. Hopefully the silver-backed chevrotain will appear once again. These neat animals walk on the tips of their hooves and very cautiously tiptoe around on their skinny legs. There were nine species of the chevrotain at one time, and it's hoped they can be redeveloped in the area once again. Vietnam seems to be taking the problem very seriously which may return a species that was thought to have become extinct. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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