page_title: Siamese crocodile
section_title: Exploitation and fragmentation
hierarchical_section_title: Siamese crocodile / Conservation status and threats / Threats / Exploitation and fragmentation
caption_attribution_description: Hrvatski: Tonle Sap
context_page_description: The Siamese crocodile is a medium-sized freshwater crocodile native to Indonesia, Brunei, East Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. The species is critically endangered and already extirpated from many regions. Its other common names include Siamese freshwater crocodile, Singapore small-grain, and soft-belly.
context_section_description: Illegal capture of wild crocodiles for supply to farms is an ongoing threat, as well as incidental capture/drowning in fishing nets and traps. C. siamensis currently has extremely low and fragmented remaining populations with little proven reproduction in the wild.
  Siamese crocodiles have historically been captured for skins and to stock commercial crocodile farms. In 1945, skin hunting for commercial farms was banned by the French colonial administration of Cambodia. In the late 1940s, populations spurred the development of farms and harvesting wild crocodiles for stocking these farms. Protection was abolished by the Khmer Rouge (1975–79) but later reinstated under Article 18 of the Fishery Law of 1987, which "forbids the catching, selling, and transportation of...[wild] crocodiles..."
  Crocodile farming now has a huge economic impact in the provinces surrounding Tonle Sap, where 396 farms held over 20,000 crocodiles in 1998. Also, many crocodiles were exported from Cambodia since the mid-1980s to stock commercial farms in Thailand, Vietnam, and China.
  Despite legal protection, a profitable market exists for the capture and sale of crocodiles to farms since the early 1980s. This chronic overharvesting has led to the decline of the wild Siamese crocodile.
caption: Siamese crocodile farm on Tonle Sap in Cambodia
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