To a certain extent, all wild animals in Laos are endangered due to wide spread hunting and gradual but persistent habitat loss. Laos ratified the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (Cites) in 2004, which, combined with other legal measures, has made it easier to prosecute people trading species endangered  as a  direct result of international trade. But in reality you won't need 20/20 vision to pick out the endangered species - both dead and alive - on sale in markets around the country. Border markets, in particular, tend to at tract the most valuable species, with Thais buying species such as gibbons as pets, and Vietnamese shopping for exotic food and medicines.

Of the hundreds of species of mammals known in Laos, several doze are endangered according to the lUCN's Redlist (www.iucnredlist.org these range from bears, including the Asiatic black bear and Malayan sun bear, through the less glamorous wild cattle such as the gaur and banteng to high-profile cats like the tiger, leopard and clouded leopard. Exact how endangered they are difficult to say. Camera-trapping projects (se ting up cameras in the forest to fake photos of anything that goes pas are being carried out by various NGOs and, in the case of the Nakai Nai Theun NPA, by the Nam Theun 2 dam operators themselves. The Nakai Nam Theun research is part of a deal brokered by the World Bank that ensures US$1 million a year is set aside for environmental study and protection in the dam's catchment area. Results of camera trapping in the Nakai Nam Theun NPA have been both encouraging and depressing. The cameras returned photos of limited numbers of several species, but also a hunter posing proudly with his kill - not quite the shots they were hoping for.

The WCS is focussing its conservation activities on species including the Asian elephant, Siamese crocodile, tiger, western black crested gibbon and Eld's deer, one of several endangered deer species including barking deer and sambar. For more details, see www.wcs.org.

Some endangered species are so rare they were unknown until very re­cently. Among these is the spindlehorn (Pseudoryx nghethingensis; known as the saola in Vietnam, nyang in Laos), a horned mammal found in the Annamite Chain along the Lao-Vietnamese border in 1992. The spindlehorn, which was described in 14th-century Chinese journals, was long thought not to exist, and when discovered it became one of only three land mammals to earn its own genus in the 20th century. Unfortunately, horns taken from spindlehorn are a favoured trophy among certain groups on both sides of the Lao-Vietnamese border.

In 2005 WCS scientists visiting a local market in Khammuan Province discovered a 'Laotian rock rat' laid out for sale. But, what was being sold as meat turned out to be a genetically distinct species named the Laon-astes aenigmamus. Further research revealed it to be the sole survivor of a prehistoric group of rodents that died out about 11 million years ago. If you're very lucky you might see one on the cliffs near the caves off Rte 12 in Khammuan Province.

Among the most seriously endangered of all mammals is the Irrawaddy dolphin