Ghosts of Indochina - The Kingdom of Rarities - page 152

correspondent for Science magazine, Orians sought to uncover the lasting effects of defoliant
on nonhumans and particularly on rare species already at risk of extinction. In 1970, Orians
and his colleague E. W. Pfeiffer published a paper in Science titled “Ecological Effects of
the War in Vietnam.” The defoliated upland areas he saw had been converted not to grass-
lands but rather to “bamboo forests.” Bamboo, a grass, is not killed by Agent Orange. (The
US Army used a different defoliant to target grasses in its “Resource Denial Program,” which
focused on spraying rice fields to starve the enemy and which could have affected the bam-
boo groves as well.) This defoliation of forests must have displaced species that depended
on forest cover. Quantitative data on forest wildlife during the war were absent; there was
one grisly anecdote, though. Unlike other rare vertebrates that fled battlegrounds, wild tigers
headed toward gunfire. They had learned that combat zones meant encounters with mortally
wounded and dead soldiers.
For the Javan rhinos in Vietnam, the best short-term strategy for preserving the species
after the war was to hold on to the rhinos that had survived; the best long-term strategy com-
bined vigilance and patience. As a first step, David and his Vietnamese colleagues worked
through the 1990s to build up Cat Tien National Park through Dutch funding and create
a conservation program in Cat Loc, where the rhinos actually lived. The second step was
to design a viable future for the species by promoting conservation-friendly activities in a
2,500-square-kilometer buffer zone between Cat Tien and Cat Loc and to lay the groundwork
for turning the entire area into a biosphere reserve under the auspices of UNESCO's Man and
the Biosphere Programme.
In 2005, fifteen years after our first visit, David Hulse returned to assess the progress of Vi-
etnam's recovery of its rare species. David invited me to accompany him to see one of his
favorite conservation projects in the southern part of the country. Nguyen Tran Vy, a former
protégé and now one of the top young ornithologists in Asia, was our host, and he was eager
to show us some of the extraordinary birds in the Tan Phu State Forest Reserve in southern
Vietnam.
On a hot, muggy November morning, Vy motioned for us to take cover behind a copse of
bamboo. He pressed the “play” button on his recorder and the rising whistle of an orange-
necked partridge arced over the forest. From the shoulder of the hill came a return volley.
This was the fifteenth bird to answer his playback, but none had dared to come into our view.
David and I stared hopefully at a gap near the forest floor, waiting, listening, sweating, while
Vy's tape let loose more whistles. We hid, drenched in perspiration, blind to the male part-
ridge examining us from a termite mound right next to us. Only our young guide saw the bird
before it vanished.