Wednesday February 10, 2010
WWF: Orang asli being used
By YENG AI CHUN
thestar.com.my
PETALING JAYA: Many middlemen are using orang asli to hunt for wildlife, including tigers, for their parts, said World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Malaysia.
Its chief executive Datuk Dr Dionysius Sharma said the authorities needed to step up their enforcement to protect the wildlife and to prevent orang asli from being exploited by these middlemen.
“The middlemen or syndicates find people to trap and kill for them because there is a demand for wildlife parts,” he said in response to an incident where a tiger was shot and left to die in a snare in Perak last week.
“We need to invest in more equipment and people. Our forests and reserve areas are very large and they are easily accessible due to logging roads and porous borders.
“If we don’t protect our tigers, who will?” he said.
In last week’s incident, an orang asli, Yok Meneh had claimed that he was attacked by the tiger while on his way to gather petai at the Bukit Tapah Forest Reserve last Saturday.
However, it was later found that he had been attacked while trying to kill the tiger which he had caught in a snare.
The animal carcass was later found by the Perak Wildlife and National Parks Department officers a day after the attack.
Malaysian Conservation Alliance for Tigers (Mycat) programme coordinator Loretta Ann Shepherd urged the authorities to come down hard on those responsible for the incident.
She said the death of the tiger must be investigated further so that not only those responsible in snaring and shooting it were brought to book, but also those who had ordered the killing.
She said that if the orang asli were truly involved in setting up the trap and killing the wildlife, they must be prosecuted.
“This would serve as a lesson for them and a deterrent to others. It is not the kind of news to start the Year of the Tiger.
“The law gives allowances to the orang asli to hunt animals but the tiger is not one of them. The orang asli know that it is illegal to kill tigers and they are not amateurs as it was also reported that they had captured and killed other protected animals,” she said.
Thursday February 11, 2010
Slow, painful death for tiger with bullet and spear wounds
By CHAN LI LEEN
thestar
IPOH: The tiger trapped by a group of orang asli in Sungkai last week died an excruciatingly slow and painful death — so painful that Perak Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) director Shabrina Shariff wept when she saw the body.
The tiger was bloodied — it had taken five bullets, two of them in its eyes. It had spear wounds all over, with the poison from the spears slowly killing it. Its flesh was torn by the wire snare and its left forelimb had been torn off.
Shabrina said she could not imagine the pain the four-year-old male tiger would have gone through since last Tuesday, the first day its limb was caught in a snare.
The carcass was found by Perhilitan officers five days later on Sunday with its left forelimb detached and the bloodied body riddled with gunshot wounds.
“But I am very sure that the pain and trauma it suffered before it died would have been excruciating,” said Shabrina.
“We extracted five bullets from its body, limb and both eyes. Its flesh was badly torn by the wire snare and spears the poachers had jabbed it with,” she said.
Shabrina said it had also been poisoned as the spears used by the orang asli were laced with sap from the Ipoh Tree.
Shabrina said that it was impossible for the tiger, which had been injured so severely, to survive.
“It is one of the worst poaching cases I have seen.
“It was a really handsome and big cat, weighing some 120kg and measuring 1.5m to 1.8m long.
“It had very beautiful fur but sadly, we were unable to restore and preserve its skin due to the extent of the injuries.
“All that we could salvage was its bones, which we will assemble later for display,” she said, adding that for the time being, the tiger was buried at the Wildlife Conservation Centre in Sungkai.
Orang asli Yok Meneh had last Saturday claimed that he was attacked by the tiger while on his way to gather petai at the Bukit Tapah Forest Reserve.
However, it was later found that he had been attacked while trying to kill the tiger, which was caught in a snare set by other orang asli.
Shabrina said the orang asli claimed that they hunted tiger for its meat which was considered an aphrodisiac.
“But I believe that they could be involved in selling tiger parts to middlemen.”
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Oh dear, they killed the tiger — Tay Tian Yan
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com
FEB 11 — I think it is necessary to tell you the tiger’s whereabouts... pardon me, should be its fate instead.
We were told that unfortunate Orang Asli Yok Meneh was attacked and wounded by a tiger when he was collecting petai at the Bukit Tapah Forest Reserve.
Yok Meneh said he endured pain and fought the tiger. Eventually, the tiger slunk away.
Everyone applauded and praised him, saying that he was a modern Wu Song, a Chinese fictional hero who was well known for killing a tiger with his bare hands.
I am afraid that some enthusiastic people even wished to send the heroic tiger fighter rice and medicines.
Oh, it is not necessary to do so!
Yok Meneh was neither unfortunate, nor was he heroic.
Instead, the tiger was the unfortunate one, and it is now a dead tiger.
Perak Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) officers found in their investigation that there was no petai tree there. How could he collect petai when there was no petai tree there?
In fact, he went there with two other men to set up a snare to capture a tiger.
As a result, the wretched tiger’s limb was caught in the wire snare. Yok Meneh and his friends fired several shots at the tiger and waited for the tiger to die.
The next day, they returned to the jungle to collect the carcass, planning to sell it for money.
Unexpectedly, the tiger had not died yet. It attacked and wounded Yok Meneh.
Yok Meneh then returned to the village. He made up a story and became a hero.
The left forelimb of the tiger had been torn off and the detached limb was still caught in the snare.
With bullet and spear wounds, the tiger collapsed about 20m from the site.
The poor tiger could not even live until the Year of the Tiger.
According to investigations, Yok Meneh and his friends had previously killed a lot of tigers and other protected animals.
It reminded me of the South China tiger photo scandal.
Farmer Zhou Zhenglong claimed that he found a believed-to-be-extinct wild South China tiger, and he was able to snap photos of it.
The news shocked the whole country and everyone was so happy to find that the South China tiger was not yet extinct. Zhou became so famous and he received a huge sum in interview and appearance fees.
However, experts later found that the photos were fake, they were in fact replicas of a traditional Chinese lunar new year picture.
The people were frustrated when they found that they had been cheated. Zhou and a few officials who covered for him were charged or sacked.
How is this related to the tiger-killing incident in Malaysia then?
Both of them used a tiger to lie. However, the motives, people’s mentalities and social reactions were totally different.
Zhou only fabricated a tiger while Yok Meneh and his friends deliberately shot and killed a real tiger.
Zhou made use of the people’s care for endangered animals to gain benefits. And Yok Meneh made use of the people’s belief that tiger meat and penises had special functions to earn money.
Chinese people were frustrated over the fake photo incident, resulting in action being taken against those who were involved.
Malaysians, however, did not respond much. It was just a tiger, after all.
But there are not many wild tigers left in Malaysia. The most we have are about 400. How long can these tigers meet the demand of those with extremely high sexual fantasies but low ability?
Please leave the tigers alone. You will get a better effect if you spend about RM30 for a capsule of Viagra. — mysinchew.com
* This article is the personal opinion of the writer or publication. The Malaysian Insider does not endorse the view unless specified.
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