Find a dead mouse deer in a protected forest, suspected to be a victim of poaching

The PROFAUNA Indonesia forest monitoring team found a dead mouse deer in the Cungkup protected forest, Ngantang District, Malang Regency on May 2 2024. The mouse deer died with a number of wounds and was lying in the bushes in the middle of the forest.

The discovery of the mouse deer's body began with routine forest monitoring carried out by the PROFAUNA Indonesia team and local communities. Seeing the condition of the mouse deer, it is suspected that this is a victim of hunting, because in the Cungkup forest there are no mouse deer predators.

"The mouse deer is a type of animal that is protected by law, so it cannot be hunted or killed. "Poachers of protected animals can face up to 5 years in prison," explained by Rosek Nursahid, ecologist from PROFAUNA Indonesia.

These mouse deer in the wild tend to be shy and solitary. They live solitary lives and do not live in large groups like deer. But when entering the mating period, the mouse deer will form small-scale groups of around 3 to 6 individuals.

Mouse deer tend to be active at night, but are also sometimes found active during the day looking for food. Mouse deer consume grass, leaves, mushrooms, bushes, creepers, and even fruit that falls to the ground. When looking for food, mouse deer will move slowly and tend to choose areas protected by bushes and dense trees to avoid predators such as eagles, tigers and snakes.

The habitat of the mouse deer is in primary and secondary forests in the lowlands up to an altitude of 1000 m. The PROFAUNA Indonesia team once obtained video from camera traps installed in primary forest at an altitude of more than 1000 m.