Phnom Penh: Wildlife Refuge

Saturday we spent the day at a wildlife refuge about an hour outside of Phnom Penh. Until 2002, this place was a zoo but now they have upgraded many of the enclosures and they only keep animals that have been raised in captivity and therefore cannot be released back into the wild. They also have breeding programs for endangered or threatened animals. This was a very useful excursion for us because we will be looking for many of these animals in the forests for our research. It was a great opportunity to see these formerly foreign animals up close.

Pok and Vissatha also joined us at the wildlife refuge. they are both from Cambodia and they will be are our translators while we are in the forests of Oddar Menchaey working on our research. They are very kind and they have already done a great job answering all of our questions about the culture and country of Cambodia. We are very excited to work with them further. :)

Our guide, Aram from the Netherlands, was fantastic. He just got married to a spunky Cambodian woman last year and so we spent a lot of time talking with them about all the customs that he has found out about. Apparently you are not supposed to touch other people on the head or step over people. These things are considered very rude and have gotten him into some rather humorous trouble occasionally. He was also very knowledgable about the animals. It seemed like he knew them each individually by name!

Hope you enjoy the photos from the wildlife refugee!