Because almost all the tamaraws live within the same small area, the species is extremely vulnerable. A natural disaster or localised disease outbreak could wipe out almost every last individual in one fell swoop. What’s more, there is no “back-up” tamaraw population in human care as this buffalo species has never been kept in a zoo outside of the Philippines. At one time, roughly 10,000 tamaraws roamed the island of Mindoro. Over time, this population has been decimated by hunting – including trophy hunting by wealthy foreigners – habitat loss, and disease transmitted by domestic water buffalo, so that now there are only some 470 individuals left. Most of this small population has been pushed back to the predominantly grassy volcanic slopes of the Mounts Iglit-Baco National Park, where they live at altitudes of up to 2,500 metres. The IUCN now classifies the tamaraw as “Critically Endangered”.

In 2017 field studies were conducted to seek out more tamaraws on Mindoro and to collect basic data on their distribution. The findings from these studies can serve as a basis for creating new protected areas for the species. As the tamaraws inhabit the ancestral land of the Mangyan people, their protection can only be guaranteed in cooperation with that community. At the beginning of 2018, an important and previously unknown subpopulation of Tamaraws was discovered outside the Mounts Iglit-Baco National Park, in the remote region of Amnay. The funding that enabled the studies to be conducted was provided largely by Tierpark Berlin.