Original subtitles

So many of my missions are spent trying to save animals that once existed in

huge numbers.

But what if there was an animal so unique, so rare, it was essentially

unknown?

Not just a species, but in fact, a genus.

So exotic that it was only first discovered in 1996.

and has almost never been seen since.

Possibly extinct, it's the rarest animal in the world.

Something like a unicorn.

Yeah, something exactly like that.

It's called the Thala, the Asian unicorn.

Every single year.

As many as 2 ,000 species are deemed extinct worldwide.

But the process we use to declare an animal extinct is an inexact science.

It happens all the time.

Animals are rediscovered that were thought to be gone forever.

My grandfather discovered a coelacanth 66 million years after it was supposed

be extinct.

I'm Forrest Galante. I'm a wildlife biologist.

and my life's work is searching for animals that we've given up on.

On this expedition, I'm trekking deep into the most remote forest of Vietnam

in search of an animal so rare it was only just discovered in

1996 and hasn't been documented since.

Our path will take us beyond untouched terrain, revealing unknown species,

and leading us deep into the largest known cave passage in the world to

a recently discovered hidden oasis as exotic and unknown as the animal itself.

This is Extinct or Alive. The Sala.

This is Hanoi.

Northern Vietnam's capital city, squeezed between China and Laos.

We're less than 50 miles from the jungle, where the saula, the rarest

the world, was first identified as a new genus, meaning no similar animals exist

in Southeast Asia.

The scientific community was shocked. A large mammal had gone unknown in the

modern era.

the first live sallow was captured in a poacher's snare and transported into

captivity. This animal evolved completely in isolation without any

relatives right here in the Annamites.

Nearly five feet tall and weighing up to 200 pounds, the Asian unicorn has

distinctive white facial markings.

And even more unique are its scent glands that it rubs on trees to attract

mate.

But little else is known about this mysterious creature.

Welcome to Hanoi. Good to see you. Thanks for meeting me.

Pleasure. Bill is the world's leading expert on saula, and in fact the only

Western scientist who has spent any time around a live saula.

My understanding is that it was given that name, the unicorn, because when

looking at it in profile, the horns visually merge into one, and it looks as

though it has a single horn.

Yeah, I think part of it also is...

An extraordinarily beautiful animal with the white spots on the side of the

faces.

Rarely seen and known for being unusually gentle, it's obvious how the

stuck. When it was discovered, it was probably the most surprising zoological

find of the 20th century. Right.

Because here you had not just a new species of mammal weighing 100 kilos, an

entirely new scientific genus. Unbelievable.

Yeah, it just blew the minds of biologists and animals.

And Bill would know. The Sala was transferred from a private zoo

in Laos, owned by General Chang, where Bill was brought in to study it.

When she was caught, she was probably the most significant captive animal in

world at that time. Sure.

But from there, this story only gets more unique and ultimately tragic.

The female Sala Bill lovingly named Martha died.

only 18 days after her discovery.

Friday morning, she was lying down, like on her side, which wasn't a good sign.

It was like dusk on this cold winter day, and I just watched her breathe her

last.

General Cheng's staff basically cooked her and ate her.

No autopsy to reveal the cause of death, and no remains to study or transfer to

a museum.

Two weeks after the world learned it existed, the Asian unicorn was no more.

But Phil has never lost hope.

Are they extinct?

Are they still here?

I'm almost certain they're not extinct, but there's still some in the forests of

Vietnam and Laos. Good. Where would you suggest I begin?

We want to go to the Annamite Mountains, which is the mountain range that forms

the border between Laos and Vietnam.

I'm cruising along the western edge of the Annamite Mountains.

This mountain range stretches 700 miles end -to -end, and the last sighting of a

Sala was in 2013 when a single trail camera managed to capture an image.

Since then, there's been a rush of interest in finding the animal.

I'm devoting this expedition to a species that might not be extinct, but

fact the world's rarest animal.

And I'm far from the only one looking. Over 500 cameras border the western and

eastern edges of the Anemites. But if I want to find this creature, I have to do

something that everyone else is not already doing. I have to go to a place

further and deeper and harder to get to than anyone else is going to look for

the Salah.

And by the way, some estimates say there's up to 150 wild tigers in the

the Anemite.

So, my first destination is the most remote village in this region.

The last human settlement for 30 miles in any direction.

Coming up off the river, this is the village here, so I'm going to show some

style of pics and see if anybody recognizes the animal.

You know this one, my friend? You know this one?

Hello.

You know it?

No?

Hi, guys.

Do you guys know this one, this animal?

They know it. This is good.

Last year? So wait, three months ago, you saw one up here? How far away? How

from this area?

Two days walking?

Wow. All right, thank you. Thank you very much.

The fact that two days walk from here, there could be saula, that's a very good

sign. Hello!

All of those hunters seem to recognize the animal.

Sounds like Phil may be right.

The saula may still live in these mountains.

Now that I've been given a direction from one of the villagers, I'm using my

Google Earth program to map where we're heading within the mountain.

And this is a huge, insanely difficult terrain.

Some of these peaks reach as high as 8 ,500 feet.

So I think what I want to do is try and take the path of least resistance, which

means following this river downstream.

So tomorrow's going to be wet.

On expedition, I try to pack for anything. And we've got plenty of

rope. spiked boots and a whole ton of gear to cross this impossible terrain

unfortunately i didn't pack a boat so we're gonna have to make one bamboo is

of the absolute greatest natural materials grows quickly it's full of air

pockets it makes great water canteens you can eat juvenile bamboo roots it's

light completely sustainable to cut down

So each compartment that you can see in the bamboo is its own individual air

pocket, completely watertight. What we're going to need is about 15 pockets

each. I should clean it up a bit.

Now, I need a small raft, plus two larger ones for the crew and gear.

Luckily, I brought enough machetes for everybody.

Okay, that's one.

Okay, we've got one crossbeam that runs through the center of it all.

That's going to hold it together.

We're going to put another one up on that end, and that's the foundation of

raft.

Where I grew up in Zimbabwe, we used to have a dam on our farm.

So starting at about age seven, I used to build rafts. Unfortunately, we had a

bunch of wild bamboo on the property, so I started building rafts at a very

young age to go out and catch fish and chase animals around on.

Given that the Sala is a semi -aquatic bovid, we're going to...

try our best to camouflage ourselves.

So these are military -grade ghillie suits.

So the idea is that if we're cruising down the river, Salah just happens to be

down in the water feeding or prancing around, and we come floating up on it,

it's not just going to dart away.

I've brought enough to outfit the entire crew, and now we're ready to launch.

All right.

Hey, it floats.

It floats.

Can you guys get the next one, do you think?

Yeah, we'll put the bigger one in and stay behind you. Okay. Well, I'm going

take off and get ahead then.

Coming up.

That's the red shank, Duke.

Those are so stunning.

And later.

Look at this right here.

The right size, the right shape.

Here you go, Mitch.

Oh, my God. Look at that.

I want to scream with excitement.

I'm in central Vietnam, heading downriver to reach the Annamite

I'm told I may find the world's rarest animal, the saula.

All right, just got out of the area of human impact.

Starting to look like some very wild, very rugged habitat.

The ghillie suit was created as a portable hunting blind, designed to

match your surroundings while keeping you mobile.

Big, big water buffalo.

Completely relaxed.

Just totally ignoring me.

Completely unaware of my presence, which is perfect. It means this ghillie

suit's working really well. So I imagine a salad would just stand there staring

at me just like this.

This is the spot that we picked out from the Google Earth.

A hike in from here, it looks like the best valley to follow into the

I'm spiking my pole through the raft to keep it in place and mark the spot I've

come ashore for the rest of the team.

This thing is beyond impossible to move through the bush in.

While the ghillie suit was perfect camouflage for the raft, it's only going

slow us down on foot.

All right.

Time to start tracking.

It's interesting about walking in the jungles in Southeast Asia is you hear

quiet it is. Now, most jungles worldwide, there's a plethora of noise,

birds, frogs.

But in this part of the world, it's a very quiet jungle.

And the Saula has actually learned that. They say when it moves, it's completely

silent. It has no sound at all. So it's not that there's no wildlife here. What

it is, is that the wildlife here knows how to be incredibly stealthy.

Normally, the quiet puts people at ease. But in this jungle, it's the quiet

predators that are the most lethal.

Oh, look at this nasty thing.

This is a scolopendrous.

It's a type of centipede that's highly venomous, and a bite from that is

incredibly painful.

Look at the size of him. I mean, that is a centipede bigger than my hand.

He is beautiful, even if he's very, very toxic.

So interestingly enough, because there's so many of these in Vietnam, there's a

local remedy, and if you're bitten by one, what you do is you use chicken spit

on the side of the bite, and that supposedly makes it feel better.

So, how do you collect spit from a chicken?

Well, a gentleman never tells.

Look at that.

So cool. Just not something you want to end up with in your sleeping bag.

Already, we're seeing an increasing amount of wildlife.

It's clear we're heading in the right direction, based on the sheer amount of

game trails and animal tracks all around us.

Once you get this far out, because of the seasonality of the rains here, these

creek beds make perfect game trails.

And not only do they make easy paths to walk through, but the Thalas were known

to love water.

Look up in either direction, you can see how there's just this perfect funnel.

And it's just jagged, steep cliffs, this little pocket of pristine habitat.

It's so biologically unexplored. Every little fish like that in these creeks,

every butterfly, every insect, any of them could be a new species because the

reality is nobody's checked.

As a biologist, I could easily lose focus around all this diversity.

But as we get more remote, it's important we stay alert to anything that

as a threat.

Think, think, think, think, think, think.

Coming up. Did you hear that?

This is a poacher's live trap.

Look what's inside of it.

We're deep in the jungles of Vietnam in search of the world's rarest animal, the

saula, also known as the Asian unicorn.

And as we close in on the location local hunters told us about, we're

discovering an abundance of healthy wildlife.

Snake, snake, snake, snake, snake, snake.

Look at this beauty.

Sharp -nosed vine snake. Look at the length of him. You can't even tell, but

he's like five feet long.

Just a stunning snake, so we'll have a look at him.

They have a mild venom, which means you won't die.

after all the painful swelling and vomiting.

Isn't that just the most brilliant emerald green you've ever seen?

Now these guys eat frogs and small lizards.

See that?

Easy fella.

Look how he's flattening his neck. That's biomimicry, flattening out the

way a cobra does to say, look, I'm venomous, leave me alone.

Just amazingly beautiful animal.

We're closing in on the spot that the group of hunters I met with claimed to

have seen a saula three months ago.

But the terrain is only getting more difficult as we head up into the

You can see the insane steepness of this entire environment.

But the good thing is traveling along these game trails are the perfect place

put trail cameras. So set this one out here.

See these drop -offs are just so steep.

Even with so much international interest, I'm fairly confident I'm the

setting up cameras this deep into the anemite.

Now, as the salas of bovid has four stomach chambers, and in order to digest

food, it needs minerals. The main mineral being NaCl, aka salt.

And salt is the hardest thing to find out in the jungle. So, what I'm doing

is hanging salt block.

I'll just take my trail camera and place that right here.

Moving on.

We're continuing along a game trail and hoping for any sign of the Saula along

the way.

You guys hear that?

That's a warning rattle.

Something is threatened.

Oh my God, look at this.

This is a poacher's live trap.

Look what's inside of it.

You know what that is? East Asian porcupine.

I hate seeing this crap.

Being five days in from the nearest village and seeing live traps like this.

It's just super beautiful.

Those spikes are quill, actually modified hair.

And these porcupines rattle the thick hollow ones in their tail to ward off

attackers.

These things will stab right into you. They'll go inches deep, and honestly,

it's like getting stabbed with a knife.

Come on, buddy. Out you go.

He's so nervous.

There he is.

There we go.

Off he goes into the bush.

Beautiful, unique animal.

Have that amazing ability to rattle their tail to ward off predators.

It's hard to believe that people kill them and eat them.

And now what I want to do is destroy this awful trap.

Do you have those wire cutters?

By nightfall, we've reached the area where the hunters described their

thalassiding. And I'm not waiting for sunlight to have a look around.

Look at this.

Gross.

Days into the bush.

And signs of humans. And plastic.

Plastic trash.

It seems like no matter how far in we go, there's still people going there.

Look at that thunder in the background.

Sounds like there's a storm coming.

Another long night. A few nice snakes, a couple small mammals, some great

monkeys, but it's just not what I'm looking for. There's just no signs of

And even after being this many days in, there's still signs of human traffic

everywhere. There's footpaths.

There's little pieces of plastic and trash.

This habitat is so tough, and it's seeming so fruitless.

So, probably time to head back to camp.

My morale is taking a dip.

We're almost a week into some very difficult bush, but no sign of the

clearly not out of man's reach.

Any extra energy we had this morning is quickly being sapped.

hiking almost vertically into this thick bush.

And just when I'm trying to convince myself it's all worth it, a deadly

I come like all this way out here, where you think no other person has ever

stepped foot, and there's snares still.

A week in.

We're going to find a salla, and what do we find? We find live porcupines and

traps and snare wires that'll catch anything.

There's poachers all through these mountains, and it's very discouraging.

Months and sometimes years of planning go into these expeditions.

But when you deal with the most remote areas of the world, you have to be ready

for surprises.

There's almost no chance we're going to find the rarest animal in the world.

where poachers are active.

If people are here, they would have found it.

Luckily, I have a backup plan.

I had this idea that there's one other pocket that's truly untouched.

It's a completely isolated pocket of forest habitat.

Kind of this primordial Eden in the middle of this cave system.

You're talking about that cave that you showed me. Exactly.

Songdoon.

First discovered in 2009, and located just off the border of Laos and Vietnam.

Song Dung Cave roughly translates to Cave of the Mountain River.

It's the largest known cave passage in the world.

And the center of that cave is a completely untouched rainforest.

Seeing as the cave was only discovered 10 years ago, nobody's had an

to hunt in there.

Less than 2 ,000 people have ever been inside.

And the last group of biologists...

discovered multiple new species.

I mean, it's still early morning. If we get a jump on it now, we save ourselves

an extra day.

And if we hike straight back out without surveying, it'll probably only be five

days.

That's the call.

It's going to take nearly a week to get there.

But it's one area I know the poachers haven't reached.

We're going to be in the heart of the Salah habitat, and we're going to be...

in an isolated pocket. So at least if there's one there, we're going to find

Coming up. Get ready for a serious climb. We're heading into the world's

cave. Oh, my God. Look at that.

After over a week of hiking through this dense Vietnamese forest in search of

the Asian unicorn, all we found were poacher's traps and human debris.

So we spent the last five days hiking back out.

My crew and I are now continuing our long, difficult trek through the tall,

jagged cliffs within these Annamite Mountains to reach an untouched forest

hidden within the world's largest cave.

An area deep in suspected Sala territory.

This is a game trail right here. See those branches broken like this?

That's very fresh. That's an animal. Let's knock that down right there.

These vines are freaking nasty.

You can see this is an absolute corridor for animals coming up down this.

High -traffic spots like this are perfect for trail cams. That's my first

up right here.

With so little information available about the saula, it's difficult choosing

bait.

So now all this old squishy, stinky fruit, and all those fruit sugars will

ferment, and the smell will travel a long, long distance. So we'll just see

anybody wants to come in and eat that.

Even with no sign of the Saola, I'm feeling like I made the right choice.

As we continue towards our new destination, the untouched rainforest

within Song Joong Pae.

Right there. Look, look, look.

See that?

That's the Red Shank Duke.

Those are so stunning.

You see that red and that white and that orange, that incredible coloration that

has earned them the name of the queen of the primates because of how stunning

they are. They're the most colorful primate on Earth.

Lycol primates are extremely social, and they live in troops of up to 15

animals.

These animals are critically endangered, meaning they're at risk of serious

extinction, but what a beautiful primate they are to see here.

Well, that's an incredibly rare treat.

The five -day trek out of the Anamite was nearly as long as the trek in,

I had to return to each trail camera to collect the footage.

Now, after another three days on foot, we're finally nearing the cave.

Look at that.

That's the entrance to Sungdoon Cave right there.

The largest, one of the least explored caves in the world.

Once we get down there, there's an entire rainforest ecosystem.

Shondum was just discovered in 2009, with its vast,

untouched darkness spanning over five miles.

This is the only access point to the rainforest within, and with so little

known about the animal,

It's even possible we could discover a saula inside, or possibly a new

species that's evolved on its own, trapped because the entrance is a 300

drop to the cave's floor.

Not only are we climbing down, but we're going down with all of our biological

gear, our scientific equipment, and looking for an extinct animal, so get

for a serious climb.

Any animal that's climbed down here would be trapped, leaving it no choice

to find the rainforest just like we are.

How you doing, Mitch?

Having fun?

We've got a ways to go.

Sure do.

I've just dropped 300 feet down into the world's largest cave in search of

a hidden, untouched rainforest that I suspect could be home to the world's

rarest animal, the saula.

Whew!

That was an absolutely amazing climb, going from 300 feet,

where that small opening is, down to the base here.

Unbelievable. And what I have here is a very rudimentary map of the system.

It's five and a half miles end to end. And about four and a half miles through

that is the jungle section.

Which is where we'll find the hidden rainforest.

An isolated world, big enough to support the flying foxes and even tigers that

have been seen in the area.

So it's definitely big enough to support a small population of saula.

But getting there means climbing, rappelling, and even swimming.

A mountain climber like Basala could likely handle it, as could the mountain

goats, sparrows, and sun bears that inhabit this range.

And while none of them would make a home in this passage, we'll still need to

keep an eye out as we trek through.

Oh, look at this.

There's an entire pile of bones here.

These are not fossilized. They're calcified, meaning tons and tons of

deposits of calcium have added up on top of them.

If you look at the pelvic girdle, it actually looks like it could be the

from bovid.

That being said, it's really hard to tell.

The only way I'm going to know what it is is if I take a sample with me. So I'm

going to take one of these, and if it hasn't been completely corrupted by all

the calcium, we might actually be able to get a genetic sample.

Very, very exciting to see this here.

So you can hear we're getting close to the river now.

You can see it's a huge river within the cave, so it's absolutely enormous. So

now the key is to follow the river, keep going down, and eventually we'll get to

the bar.

Everywhere I turn, there seems to be a new discovery down here.

even in the tiny puddles of water.

Oh, look at this.

There's a completely white, translucent little fish here.

Come on, little guy.

This is a tiny little species of loach, and loaches are a member of the catfish

family. And these fish have been isolated from sunshine and isolated from

outside world for so many generations that they've completely evolved away

having eyeballs.

And it just goes to tell you how cut off from the outside world this piece of

cave is, because you'd end up with animals that are evolved for perfect

like this creature.

This one was trapped in this tiny little pool here, so I'm going to look for

some friends of his in one of the other pools and release him.

Here we go. We'll put him right down in here.

All right, off you go, little guy.

Man, that is amazing. What a cool fish.

We've been inside this cave for over 36 hours with no sunlight.

I've lost any concept of day or night, but I know we've passed the four -mile

mark.

Now the path is only getting more difficult, but finally I'm beginning to

the light. I smell fresh air seeping in.

So that's where we're trying to go.

But if we want to get there, we have to get through all these 30 -foot boulders

first.

It's so narrow here that we have to go one at a time.

Just got to head down into that crack and see how we go.

This way, guys.

Okay.

There we go.

A little bit of daylight.

Our first sunlight in nearly two days.

This is it.

We found the secret oasis.

Oh my God, look at that.

I like want to scream with excitement right now. Just to know that right there

is this primordial patch of jungle completely untouched by man.

likely the last one in Southeast Asia.

Any animal that's ever entered the cave would have to come here to survive and

then likely flourish.

What's amazing is the level of endemism that would occur in a place like this,

meaning species that occur nowhere else on Earth.

From what I could see, it's absolutely stunning. I mean, it's so green, it's so

lush, and it's just perfect.

What we're going to do is just go as quietly as we can, pepper the area with

trail cameras, put up our mineral blocks, retreat back into the cave, and

wait and hope for the best.

Do you guys see this beautiful little snail here?

I've never seen a lime green colored snail before.

With a pink rim.

This is the invertebrate book.

for Southeast Asia, and there's nothing in this book that matches this

description.

So, you know, we're in one of the least biologically explored places on the

planet. You can see it's died. Because there's no animal in there, it's

completely harmless to take it with me. So I'm going to bag it up, bring it with

us, and show it to a friend of mine who's an invertebrate expert. But this

pretty cool. I think we've just found a new species down here in the cave.

You see all the white bits on the leaves here in the vegetation?

That's all bird and bat guano, meaning droppings. And that guano has created

fertilizer that has made this such a rich forest.

I'm hoping it's made the scenario that an animal like a sow has happened to

in complete isolation.

And with no human disturbance.

There seem to be signs of wildlife everywhere I look.

Look at that right here.

You see that?

Coming up. Oh.

I'm in Vietnam.

Deep inside the world's largest cave.

After trekking for two days in pitch black, we've reached the untouched

rainforest buried within.

A perfect oasis for a Saula, hidden from mankind with no access from above.

And I've redirected the entire expedition on my hunch we'll find

Look at this right here.

Do you see that?

That is from a cloven -hoofed animal.

Down here in the middle of this jungle, there's only two things that have a hoof

like that. It could be out here. One's a mountain goat, and the other, of

course, is a saula.

That's exactly what we've been looking for, the sign of a saula down here.

Look here. See, there's a little track that comes down through the vegetation

here. Oh, look, there is actually another one here. Look.

I didn't even see that.

That's a really, really good track. It's the right size, the right shape.

I've brought some plaster so I can make an exact model of these prints and take

them home to be analyzed.

Just like that.

Just make sure you get all of the track there.

Absolutely perfect.

I want to go to the other one that's up there.

That has to sit for about 20 minutes until it's rock solid.

Come to this one over here.

Just perfect.

Even without a saula print on file, analysts will be able to determine what

bovid left us by process of elimination.

Never in my life have I been so happy to just find a single track.

Look at this little leech.

The good news about this is...

There are only leeches where there are mammals.

We've got tracks right here. We've got a game trail right there.

Interestingly enough, this guy could actually have the definitive proof we

from Sala.

There's groups that are working on taking blood from leeches and testing

for Sala DNA. So in fact, what I'm going to do is keep this.

Grab a vial.

You can see, clear as anything, that these are from an undulate. They're from

cloven -hoofed animal, and it looks like they round in that heart shape at the

top. Now, whether or not this is from a saula, I really can't say. It's not

definitive proof.

But what it is proof of is a large cloven -hoofed animal that lives in a

where many saula have been reported. I'll get them analyzed with some saula

experts and consider this a step in the right direction.

While I haven't spotted a live saula, we now have prints, a leech, calcified

bones, and an enormous amount of trail cam footage, any of which still has a

chance of revealing definitive proof the saula is alive and well.

This has been one of the longest expeditions I've ever attempted, and my

resources are tapped out.

After one more night in the tent, We've now got another mile to trek through

Song Joong -K to reach the other end and get back to the surface.

After days underground in the most breathtaking environment I've ever seen,

feel how I'd imagine an astronaut feels.

landing back on Earth, carrying precious cargo that we hope will

expand our understanding of the universe.

The Annamite Mountains are large and mysterious, not unlike our Saula.

And although I found very few signs of the world's most recently discovered

large mammal, sometimes it's not about signs. It's about gut feeling and

instinct.

What we did find is an ecosystem full of amazing, unique, incredible creatures.

And if you think about all of the animals that occur in the animites, in

incredible region of bioabundance with this amazing amount of endemism, not

do I believe that the saula is still here, but I'm convinced that as more

research efforts take place in this region, we're going to find out that

are all kinds of undiscovered species just like this unicorn.

So when I left Vietnam, I left a whole bunch of trail cameras set up all over

the place. But fortunately, I have great contact there, and they went and

collected all of the SD cards out of the trail cameras.

And I have them here, and I'm excited to see what's on them.

Oh, there's a palm civet here, and he's certainly not a... Oh, he just grabbed a

little bug.

Good to see there's some life, though.

Oh, up in the right -hand corner behind the salt block, there's a big four

-legged animal.

And when I say big, I mean exactly saula size.

There's one other animal that lives in this part of the world called the cerro.

The Indo -Chinese cerro has a very similar size and body structure to the

but this rare, near -threatened animal is actually a goat relative.

And unless we get him on another camera, I can't be sure which it is.

This card is up above where the salt lick was.

There he is.

Just our luck.

We did get him on another camera, just not the right parts.

The defining features are on the face. And of course, the only part of this

animal I cannot see is its head.

And that's the last of the footage.

Not enough to be definitive.

We know there's at least one animal that matches the description of the thala

right here.

It could be a thero, but it looks like a thala.

We need to get back to Vietnam.