This is so typical me not being up to speed on things. Very sorry, o Monkey King, for not posting my first entry on Monday as per your instructions. Totally my fault for being too preoccupied with work + Chuck to read the instructions properly. My bad.
Anyhow, what do I say? There are over a hundred blogs doing this, and somehow I'm sure they'd repeat the same things. I'll skip the basic info about Malayan tigers (Panthera tigris jacksonii) and simply share what I learnt from the Sg Yu campaign in Taman Negara.
Many of us don't think we have anything to do with the decimation of the tiger population. But maybe we do, in a roundabout way. Think about the water we waste everyday. If everyone is so wasteful, soon there will be a water 'shortage' and people would suggest building another dam or piping water from the other side of the main range. All these developments destroy tiger habitat and can actually be avoided if people are so much more careful about their consumption.
Same goes for waste generation - more land will be needed for landfills if we don't stop throwing so much stuff away all the time. And one way to slow down the rate is 1) stop buying/accepting so much stuff, 2) compost your biodegradable waste and 3) reuse or recycle stuff.
I understand that we need to generate income somehow, but is it necessary to convert all logged forests into palm oil? Tigers can survive in logged forests, but it would be much harder for them to live in oil palm plantations. There won't be nearly enough prey for them to live on, not to mention the potential for conflict with the workers and/or villagers.
In Sg Yu, people have reported conflict with elephants rampaging through their kebun, but they failed to realise that the reason there is conflict is because THEY were encroaching into the Taman Negara area, which is basically allocated for the wildlife. If they stayed clear of wildlife territory, there wouldn't be conflict, would there? Some cases seem innocent enough. A boy killed a leopard cat (I think that's what it was, can't remember) because it ate his chickens, not realising that they're an endangered species. I personally believe that man should not be so hasty to eliminate anything which is 'stealing' his resources because guess what? You're doing it to the animals' resources! So there.
Then there are the snares. Most of the kampung guys set snares for deer and kijang, animals like that. Bear in mind that snares are illegal, ya. They might SEEM less dangerous than guns, but their effects can be devastating. First off, when they catch deer and stuff, they're eating the tigers' prey. Then other people come in and catch wild boar too - also tiger prey. 2nd choice, but better than nothing. And the snares catch anything that trips them off - even humans. The only difference is, humans have hands and opposable thumbs, so most of the time, they can free themselves. The other thing is, when an animal is snared, they'd do anything to escape - even if they lose a limb in the process. Hence 3 legged mammals found in our forests. If they can't, secondary infection kicks in and they might die of blood poisoning. Some, like elephants may be able to free the snares, but then live years with a wire constricting their limbs, effectively amputating their legs as they grow.
I saw footage of the tiger that was rescued from a snare in Belum. (Watch the video, it's on the sidebar.) Its foot had to be amputated, it finally succumbed to stress and died. And the mighty tiger shed a tear...
How cruel can we humans be? Are we not the Caliphs of the world? Change now. Save the tiger, save ourselves...
xxx,
Oza
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The tiger is our national animal. Our heritage. But today only less than 500 of them
remain in the wild. As Malaysians, we need to stand up and protect our heritage.
Speak to your children. Speak to your leaders. Everyone of us can make a difference.
For further information, please visit MYCAT (www.malayantiger.net), WWF Malaysia
(www.wwf.org.my) and Department of Wildlife & National Parks (www.wildlife.gov.my)
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