AKP Phnom Penh, January 28, 2025 --

Through its joint nest protection programme, the Mekong Turtle Conservation Team—a collaboration with the Fisheries Administration and the Wildlife Conservation Society—has found the first two nests of Asian Giant Softshell Turtles of 2025 on sandbanks along the Mekong River in Sambo district, Kratie province.

According to a WCS Cambodia’s press release on Monday, the WCS’s team expects to find more eggs of the Asian Giant Softshell Turtles during the upcoming nesting season, which runs from January to May 2025.

From 2020 to 2024, it continued, the team discovered 201 nests containing a total of 7,292 eggs, of which 3,591 successfully hatched along the Mekong River sandbanks.

However, in 2023 and 2024, the team recorded a sharp decline in nest numbers, with only 10 nests in 2023 and 11 nests in 2024.

The Critically Endangered Asian Giant Softshell Turtle was once thought to be extinct in the Cambodian portion of the Mekong River until it was rediscovered in 2007 along a 48-kilometre stretch of the river between Sambo district, Kratie province, and Siem Bouk district, Stung Treng province, WCS Cambodia said.

The Nest Protection Programme is just one of several conservation strategies used by WCS Cambodia and the Fisheries Administration to restore the population of the Asian Giant Softshell Turtle in Cambodia.

By Phal Sophanith (Photo: WCS-Cambodia)