Critically Endangered
Kouprey
Bos sauveli
Kouprey is a mammal in the family Bovidae (order Artiodactyla) — Bos sauveli, recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
Calves have a reddish bay colour and turn grey at around 5 months of age. The pelage of cows and bulls diverges as they mature. Cows turn a mouse to brownish grey, while bulls become progressively darker, until individuals of 12 years or older are entirely dark brown. Both sexes have white stockings, with a dark strip down the front of each foreleg.
It is 2.1–2.2 m (7–7.3 ft) long from nose to rear, 1.7–1.9 m (5.6–6.3 ft) tall at the shoulders and weighs 700–900 kg (1,500–2,000 lb). The horns of bulls reach up to 810 mm (32 in), and those of cows up to 410 mm (16 in).
It was first scientifically described in 1937.
Range and habitat
The range of the Kouprey once stretched from eastern Thailand and southern Laos to the western edge of Vietnam and northern Cambodia. Archaeological evidence shows that it also occurred in northern Yunnan, China. The primary the Kouprey usually lives in described as a mix of open grassland and dense open canopy forests featuring grassy glades, waterholes and salt licks.
Conservation efforts for the Kouprey began in 1960 when Norodom Sihanouk, then head of state of Cambodia, gave the species protected status and created three natural reserves for it. During this period, the majority of the country's Forestry Bureau staff were killed, and all documents relating to the reserves were destroyed.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
In crisis
The Kouprey is listed as Critically Endangered and possibly extinct on the IUCN Red List. The last confirmed sighting of a wild individual took place in 1969. The Kouprey is thought to have never been numerous, likely never exceeding 2,000 individuals during the 20th century.
In 1989, the total Kouprey population in Cambodia put the number under 200 individuals, with between 40 and 100 surviving in Laos, and less than 30 in Vietnam. As of 2016, the IUCN Red List puts the wild population at no more than 50 individuals, with a decreasing population trend.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Kouprey is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Kouprey, Wikidata item Q321255. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
