About 100 endangered Cantor’s Giant Softshell Turtle hatchlings were released into their natural habitat along the Mekong River in eastern Cambodia’s Kratie province on Friday, a conservationist said on Saturday.
The hatchlings are part of a community protection program designed to increase the wild population of the species, and had been collected from nests that were guarded by local communities, said Som Sitha, project manager for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)’s Mekong Conservation Project.
Cantor’s Giant Softshell Turtle is classified as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.
