No One Is Searching for the Saola

The Saola is one of the rarest animals on the planet. Almost certainly fewer than 50 remain in the wild. None have been recorded since 2013, and none are held in captivity. In the hope of saving the species from global extinction we have been conducting the only dedicated search for the species in the world, in the Annamite Mountains of Lao, in Southeast Asia.

Right now, that search has STOPPED.

Our Annamite Mountains Research and Conservation Team came out of the forest in July, as they do every wet season. This year, a sharp contraction in funding means we cannot yet confirm they will go back in October. Staff time and salaries have been cut. Non-essential spending has stopped. Unless we can fund their return, the contracts of 23 of our 28 field team members end on September 30. The fate of Saola, and of the team, relies on what happens next.

We urgently need $150,000 to put the team back in the forest in October and keep them searching through to the end of December.

We will mobilize month by month. Every $50,000 raised puts the full team back in the forest for one complete month. The first $50,000 sends the team in for October. The second keeps them there through November. The third carries the search to the end of December.

Every bit of support, no matter what size, makes a tremendous difference.

$27,836 raised of our $150,000 target

Each increment puts the full field team back in the forest for one more month.

Last updated 22 September 2026

With thanks

Our thanks to the zoos and individual donors who have given to this appeal so far.

And to the growing number of individual donors standing with Saola, thank you.

Give

An original Saola painting, donated for auction

American artist Jeff Long has donated an original painting, Saola, to the campaign. Jeff published an article on the Saola in the Marin Independent Journal last week. Read it here.

Bidding opens at $5,000 and closes on October 9 at 10 p.m. US Central time. Every dollar raised will go towards our emergency campaign.

What does three more months searching for Saola in the forest do?

Since January 2025, our Annamite Mountains Research and Conservation Team has run the most intensive search for Saola ever attempted. The target area of approximately 116 square miles (300 km²) was chosen on a deliberately conservative planning assumption of one surviving Saola per 300 km². We have now intensively searched approximately 36 square miles (93 km²) of it, just under 31 percent. We have detected 5,222 dung occurrences in the search area and tested 917 of them for Saola DNA.

None of them a Saola. Not yet.

In the first six months of 2026 alone, the team covered approximately 22 square miles (57 km²) of priority habitat, working a 20-day field, 10-day rest rotation.

Another three months of search effort will substantially increase our cumulative probability of detecting a Saola within the target area.

Our search is built to rapidly evolve the moment a Saola is found, because that is the moment everything changes. That is the moment we will have the chance to learn from an animal nobody has studied in the wild. Our search is built on the question: can Saola be detected in such a way that allows for safe and viable capture for conservation breeding?

If our search cannot be resumed, we will be forced to answer the hardest question of all, can Saola be saved, three months early, and with doubt lingering in our minds: what if we had done more?

Keeping the field team together: a bridge to new programs

Three more months in the forest is also three more months of investment in Lao conservation capacity and leadership. The next three months matter for Saola, and they matter for the livelihoods of the Annamite Mountains Research and Conservation Team. Unless we can fund their return to the forest, the contracts of 23 of our 28 field team members end on September 30. The five members of the Scent Detection Dog Unit are covered by existing grants. Everyone else is not.

This team represents years of specialized training and partnership with Working Dogs for Conservation, CyberTracker Conservation, WCS Lao, the WCS Molecular Genetics Lab and the National University of Laos. A field team of this caliber cannot be stood down and then easily rebuilt. If contracts end on September 30, we lose in a single step the animal tracking, logistics and technical capacity that took years to recruit and train, along with the institutional knowledge and the confidence of the Government of Lao that came with it. Rebuilding that capacity would take far longer, and cost far more, than the three months of funds we are campaigning for.

Beyond the Saola search, the skills and versatility of the team have become highly regarded within Lao, with a series of successful collaborations with WWF, WCS Lao, Association Anoulak, IUCN and the National University of Laos. Most significantly, our team is the foundation of every program in our long-term strategic plan, and the successful launch of these new programs depends on them. Keeping our team together and mobilized in the forest for the next three months keeps the Saola search alive and carries our skilled and devoted Annamite Mountains Research and Conservation Team onwards on the path to long-term impact in conservation in the Annamite Mountains Bioregion.

Give

Every gift goes to the same place: putting the team back in the forest in October and keeping them there. Your contribution today directly determines whether our trackers and scent detection dogs are in the forest through the end of the year.

Funding permitting, we will mobilize the team in the field for a minimum of one month. Every $50,000 raised puts the full team in the forest for one complete month.

Your gift is tax deductible in the United States. The Saola Foundation is a registered 501(c)(3), EIN 82-3731270.

Technical partners: Working Dogs for Conservation and CyberTracker Conservation.

The world still believes in Saola

Ready, Set, Go!

On the evening of Friday 21 August 2026, hundreds of people ran through Zoo Ostrava in the Czech Republic for Saola, an animal perhaps none of them will ever see. Read the full story.

Our multidisciplinary field team is ready to get back into the field searching for Saola in October. If we can fund them.

We are a science-led organization and the data tell us that there is a high chance that Saola still survives in small numbers and that there is a good probability that we can detect one within the next three months in our target survey areas. IF we can keep searching.

Driven by science, we are also fueled by the dedication shown by so many that Saola still has a chance. In this past year:

• Several of our long-standing donors agreed to meet pledged commitments early so the team could stay in the forest in June and remain salaried through to the end of September.
• Last month, hundreds of people ran through Zoo Ostrava in the Czech Republic, championing the search for Saola. Read their story here.
• In August, we convened a transboundary workshop requested by the Government of Lao with Viet Nam to agree what both countries would do if a Saola is found.

Runners in Saola shirts, Zoo Ostrava, 21 August 2026. Běh Zoo Ostrava pro saolu. Foto Ondřej Koelbl, Zoo Ostrava, 21. 8. 2026.