 The call was recorded by WCS biologists after a trapper handed them a bird he had caught.In 2017, a camera trap in Batang Gadis National Park took a photo of a Sumatran ground cuckoo, indicating that a previously-unknown population may exist in North Sumatra.Due to ongoing habitat loss and small population size, the Sumatran ground cuckoo is evaluated as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.