Hello welcome to wild Suzhou today we will be talking about thesaola. 

The saola is a rare animal that lives in the dense forests ofVietnam and Laos. This place is perfect for the saola considering it’s aherbivore meaning it’s diet consists of only plants. They eat stuff such as figleaves, fruits, and berries. 

They spend their time by the riverbank looking for food. Theirhabitat also has long rainy seasons and are usually found in elevationsfrom 400-750 which is relatively high. 

Saola look like deer, except they have long horns, which has giventhem the nickname “Asian unicorn”, unlike sole other animals with horns though,both males and females have horns. Saola should use horns to defend themselves. 

They are about 150 cm long and 80 cm to their shoulders. Theyweigh about 80-100 kgs when fully grown, they are mostly brown but have whitesplotches along their face, neck, and hooves. 

The animal was only discovered 30 years ago but already has adeclining population. They are listed as critically endangered and conservationprograms are trying to increase their population. Like most other animals witha decreasing population, the reason for this decline is because of hunting andloss of habitat. 

 Saola also don’t do well in captivity so making scientificobservations of them is hard. Their lifespan is expected to be around 11 butwhen in captivity is much shorter. 

What do you think could help gather more info about this animal?For wild Suzhou I’m palmtree and thank you for listening.