Funding shortages threaten search for critically endangered ‘Asian unicorn’

The ongoing search for the saola, a critically endangered tropical bovid that hasn’t been recorded by scientists since 2013, faces an uncertain future in Laos due to severe funding shortfalls, reports Mongabay’s Jeremy Hance. Scientists first described the saola (Pseudoryx nghetinhensis) in 1992 in the Annamite Mountains that run along the eastern border of Laos and Vietnam. Often called the “Asian unicorn,” it’s the sole member of its genus and is believed to have remained largely unchanged for 15 million years. However, the animal hasn’t been officially recorded since a camera-trap photograph in 2013, leaving fewer than 50 individuals estimated to survive in the wild. There are none in captivity. In 2025, the nonprofit Saola Foundation launched a search for the species across 300 square kilometers (116 square miles) of remote forest in Laos’s Bolikhamxay province. It deployed expert local trackers, sniffer dogs, and rapid field DNA testing kits. The saola is vulnerable to wire snares set in forests to trap other animals, according to Mongabay’s previous coverage. The saola search initiative is now operating on a month-to-month basis. “The team comes out of the forest each July for the wet season. This year a sharp contraction in our funding meant we could not confirm they would go back in October,” said Lorraine Scotson, CEO of the Saola Foundation for Annamite Mountains Conservation. While emergency donations from several zoos secured field operations for October, long-term funding remains unresolved. Conservationists are divided over whether the saola still survives. Barney Long, senior director for conservation strategies at the conservation NGO Re:wild, said the species’ odds of survival are slim, as a recent two-year search led by WWF-Vietnam, of which Re:wild was a partner, yielded no detections. “Unfortunately, I personally think we have lost the saola,” Long said. “It has not been seen for 13 years, and even if one or two remain hidden away in some pocket of remote rainforest, the likelihood that they are able to maintain a viable population is close to zero.” Scotson disputed conclusions of extinction, pointing out that saola population densities could be as low as one animal per 300 km2, making them challenging to spot. “We see no sound scientific reason to conclude the saola is extinct. Years without a record do not mean the species is gone,” Scotson said. She added that stopping the field team also halts vital documentation of other wildlife in the Annamites, a global biodiversity hotspot holding more than 3% of the world’s land-based vertebrate species on less than 0.2% of Earth’s land surface. Without sustained financial support, the opportunity to locate saola for potential captive-breeding programs could permanently disappear. “If we aren’t searching, no one is searching for the saola,” Scotson said. Read the full story by Jeremy Hance here. Banner image: This 1999 camera-trap photo of a saola in Laos is one of the few images of the animal in the wild. Image courtesy of Ban Vangban Village/W. Robichaud/WCS. Credits Topics