The return of Oriental Pied Hornbill to Huang Nam Khiao Forest, Koh Kood District, Trat province, under the Hornbill Re-introduction and Koh Kood local community-based Conservation project.
On 17th of May 2022 Mr. Tanakorn Chai-aart, the head of the sub-district of Koh Kood and Ms. Urarikha Kongprom, the assistant of Khao Kheow Open Zoo director under the Zoological Park Organization of Thailand have teamed up for the grand opening of the Hornbill Rehabilitation to Huang Nam Khiew experiment under the project of "the Hornbill Re-introduction and Koh Kood local community-based Conservation project”. At this moment, the Zoological Park Organization of Thailand, Kasetsart University, Thailand Hornbill Research Foundation, Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, the local Koh Kood Administrative offices have initiated this project together which is funded by the Soneva Foundation.
Ms. Urarikha said that there are only 57 kinds of hornbills around the world; in Thailand we have discovered 13 different kinds of them. The Oriental Pied hornbills are the smallest kind of hornbills scattering around the nation and they are easily adapted to the new surroundings. The Zoological Park Organization of Thailand has been able to breed them domestically. At present days, the hornbill habitats have been greatly in danger, mostly because of illegal poaching which has led to the vanishing of the birds in many locations in Thailand, including Koh Kood as well. This experiment, we have released a pair of hornbills, the male has been equipped with the remoted tracker device to continuously moderate their adaptations to the island and their new surroundings.
The importance of this experiment aimed to study the hornbill’s rehabilitation to their new habitat on Koh Kood forest. Their habits of consuming small fruits and small animals are beneficial for the spread of local plants as well as controlling the population of pests to bring the balance of ecology. In the recent past, Koh Kood has been their natural habitat in which the Oriental Pied Hornbills have been found, but they all seemed to be diminished for many years from this region. Through our ecological research, we have also been able to identify many different kinds of the hornbill natural food sources and larger trees to install their initiative nesting. We also aim to increase the population of the birds and allow them to continuously prosper in this part of the country naturally. Koh Kood is an ideal location to release the hornbills back to nature in order to conserve and provide natural and bio diversity continuously.
The goal of the project is to bring the Oriental Pied Hornbill back to Koh Kood once again, with the participations of the local communities to conserve them; through our research we have discovered that the Huang Nam Khiao waterfall has its fullest potential to begin this experiment. We found 27 kinds of larger trees as their natural habitats and 47 kinds of in which 32 of them are their natural food sources.
