In search of the last saola

“I’ve seen grown men reduced to tears in the Annamite Mountains,” says wildlife biologist Lorraine Scotson of the mountain range along the border of Laos and Vietnam. “[Men] who are physically fit and really strong, adventurous types.” There’s a “claustrophobia that gets introduced” when you’re in these forest-covered mountains, she says. “Then you’ve got the leeches and the ticks and the horseflies and all of the mosquitoes biting,” Scotson says. “It’s like the whole forest is out to get you.” Scotson knows the Annamite Mountains well. She’s spent almost two decades in the jungles of Southeast Asia studying bears. Now, as the CEO of the Saola Foundation, she’s on a different mission in the Annamites: locate what is likely the world’s most elusive large land mammal, the saola. Only discovered by Western scientists in 1992, the animal, which scientists believe is naturally rare and low density, has become so endangered that a tracker with the Saola Foundation, Maiy Thammanan, says few local people even know of it — though older residents are more likely to, due to “direct experience catching saola by snaring and hunting dogs.” But knowledge of the saola to the West came as a shock, akin to the finding of the okapi in 1901. There is nothing on Earth like the saola — a true megafauna at around 200 pounds (90 kilograms), with two long curving horns up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) and striking white face markings. Superficially, it resembles an African antelope, like a bongo or an oryx. But the saola is not an antelope; instead, it’s more closely related to wild cattle. Still, it’s so distinct from every other bovid that it sits alone in its own genus, Pseudoryx. Since 1992, the saola has only been documented a handful of times, including a couple animals briefly held in captivity and a couple others caught on camera trap. The last conclusive proof the saola still existed was in 2013 when one was photographed by a camera trap. Now, a team of trackers with the Saola Foundation is hoping to change that. The expedition, currently ongoing… Read More
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