Camera traps in Koh Kong mangroves found fishing cats living near villages

Camera traps in Cambodia's largest mangrove recorded fishing cats, otters, and civets across seven years, including animals moving near villages. Mongabay reported on November 11, 2026, on work by Fishing Cat Ecological Enterprise. From 2017 to 2023 the team set cameras at 156 coastal and river sites in Peam Krasop Wildlife Sanctuary and the adjacent Koh Kapik Ramsar site. Fishing cats used mangrove thickets away from the shore. Smooth-coated otters used channel edges. Leopard cats and hairy-nosed otters favored river mangroves. Large-spotted civets moved through paperbark swamp.

Director Vanessa Herranz Muñoz said fishing cats, smooth-coated otters, and long-tailed macaques were often photographed not far from villages, which she read as coexistence rather than hunting at the village edge. The same study found declines in four threatened species: the long-tailed macaque, the large-spotted civet, the fishing cat, and the smooth-coated otter. Only the common palm civet increased. Sunda pangolins and hairy-nosed otters stayed hard to detect. A 2023 survey with Fauna & Flora listed more than 700 species in the two sites. Herranz Muñoz said paperbark forest and river mangrove need protection along with the mangrove itself, and she named conflict, poaching, fire, and building as the pressures. The news is what the cameras recorded and the village-edge photos. It is not a recovery for the species that declined.