By David JH Blake
Hidden away off the main road between Can Tho and Long Xuyen cities is a tiny wildlife “oasis” that stands out as a rarity in the Upper Mekong Delta on two counts. Firstly, it is home to a remarkable number of wetlands birds, especially white egrets, and secondly it is a private initiative, founded by an ordinary farmer with vision and a passion for protecting birds in an otherwise bird-scarce landscape. It is this latter point that sets the “Bang Lang Stork Sanctuary”[1] apart from other, larger state-owned wetlands reserves in the Mekong Delta, which in some cases seem to be actively destroying what remains of the threatened wildlife populations, through over-commercialisation and inappropriate development activities.[2]
The founder, Nguyen Ngoc Thuyen (born in 1930 and died in 2018), opened the Bang Lang bird sanctuary in 1983 on an area of just 1.3 ha, but it later expanded to 1.65 ha. The land was formerly rice fields, like the surrounding landscape, but kicking the trend of other farmers, he planted bamboo clumps along the paddy bunds and noticed that they attracted egrets and other wetlands birds to roost at night, after daily foraging in the fields for fish, frogs and other aquatic species.
Mr Thuyen evidently was a visionary in local bird and wildlife conservation in the Mekong Delta, because he gave up the agricultural income potential to plant more bamboo and other trees on his land, to provide a safe home and refuge for the birds. As the small bamboo forest grew, so did the number of birds that rested and nested in the tree branches, including several species of egrets (e.g. Cò ngàng lớn; Cò trắng Trung Quốc), heron (e.g. Diệc lửa), cormorant (Cốc đế) and the occasional stork (e.g. Già đẩy Java), one of which was kept in a cage on site. At least 11 bird species are commonly observed in the sanctuary, with overall bird numbers estimated to reach 300,000 at the peak. Gradually he created a wildlife sanctuary for local and foreign tourists to enjoy, including building a viewing platform that puts you at a similar level to the roosting birds.
Since Mr Thuyen passed away four years ago, the sanctuary has been looked after by his elderly wife, son and other children, such as Nguyen Thi Son Ca, who was taking care of the place the day Dr Nha and myself visited in early November, 2022. She said that these days the Sanctuary receives on average about 50 visitors per day, most of whom come to see the birds return to their roosts after 5 pm until dusk.
Son Ca told us that while the egrets and other predatory birds were safe within the sanctuary, when they foraged in the surrounding ponds, canals and paddy fields, they were vulnerable to pesticide poisoning. Delta farmers perhaps use more pesticides than any other farmers across the entire Mekong Basin, so bio-accumulation of toxins in predatory birds is unsurprisingly a problem, and may well account for the general decline in bird populations across the region. She said that while the neighbouring farmers don’t mind egrets foraging in their fields, they were probably unaware that their agricultural practices were harming them. A law of unintended consequences and unfortunate side-effect of agricultural intensification.
Mr Thuyen’s elderly widow is no longer in good health and so intends to sell the Bang Lang bird sanctuary, as a way to provide a legacy for her nine grown-up children. While she would like to sell to someone who will continue to care for the sanctuary, one can imagine that there are no guarantees that this will be the case. It would be a great shame, therefore, that this little jewel of a private reserve, testament to one farmer’s care for wild birds, was lost to the people of Vietnam’s Mekong Delta in future, especially given the parlous state of regional wetlands wildlife in general. Judging by the poor condition of other state-owned wetlands nearby, and general decline in aquatic and bird diversity in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam’s wildlife needs all the help it can get from concerned citizens if more species are not to go locally extinct.
Another video of Bang Lang Stork Sanctuary from Youtube
[1] Although online references seem to mostly refer to Vườn cò Bằng Lăng as the “Bang Lang Stork Sanctuary”, it would probably be more accurate to refer to it as the “Bang Lang Egret Sanctuary”, as these are the predominant bird species present. In this article, I shall refer to it simply as the Bang Lang bird sanctuary. [2] An example would be the Tra Su wetlands forest in Tinh Bien District, where the author saw far fewer birds on a visit on 31 October than the Bang Lang bird reserve, despite Tra Su covering 850 ha.