Ranger found shot to death in central Vietnam

Nguyen Kim Anh, 49, was found dead Sunday in a field in the Ea So Nature Reserve in Ea Kar District.

In the morning station staff did not see Anh and so called so called him on the phone but could not reach him.

After a while they started to search for him in the reserve and found his motorbike on the edge of the forest with the key still in it.

After searching for several hours they found his body dumped in a cornfield near the reserve with 14 bullet wounds in the abdomen.

Ea So Nature Reserve has for years been a hotspot of illegal logging, poaching and animal trafficking.

The 27,000-hectare park has a wide range of habitats, including 11,274 ha of evergreen forests, 4,513 ha of semi-evergreen forests and 144 ha of deciduous forests.

It is home to 279 animal species, including rare and endangered ones, and 709 plant species.

According to a report in May by the Ea So Nature Reserve management, last year rangers discovered 10 instances of poaching and illegal logging and seized nearly 4.5 cubic meters of various kinds of wood, five chainsaws, one gun, and 41 animal traps.

In the first five months of this year there were three more.