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Tonle Sap, Cambodia  Cambodia's Great Lake or Tonle Sap is located in central Cambodia and is the largest freshwater lake in all of Southeast Asia. It exhibits an enormous seasonal change in surface area due to flooding during the annual rainy season. During this period it triples in surface area and large areas of grassland and forest are inundated. This flooding results in a highly productive wetland ecosystem that supports one of the largest freshwater fisheries in the world. Fishing, as well as agriculture, are the two main livelihoods for the three million people who live around the lake. A large crocodile farming industry also thrives around Tonle Sap. The crocodiles, primarily Crocodylus siamensis, are raised for their skins, which are exported to Thailand. The majority of the crocodile farms in Cambodia are small-scale family-run operations concentrated around Tonle Sap.  The homalopsine water snakes that are caught by local fishermen in their gill nets and fish traps are used as the primary food for the captive crocodiles and also for human use. Our studies of the water snakes seek to understand the size and nature of the annual harvest as well as the population dynamics of the water snake species.Some of the results of this work appear in the following publication: Stuart, B. L.;Smith, J.; Davey, K.; Prom, D.; and Platt, S. G. 2000. Homalopsine Watersnakes, The Harvest and Trade from Tonle Sap, Cambodia. TRAFFIC Bulletin 18(3): 115-124 Murphy, J.C.; Voris, H.K.; Stuart, B.L.; Platt, S.G. 2002. Female Reproduction in the Rainbow Water Snake, Enhydris enhydris (Serpentes, Colubridae, Homalopsinae). The Natural History Journal of Chulalongkorn University 2(1): 31-37 To request paper reprints or downloadable PDF versions of these documents, please visit our Reprint Request Form Website.
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