Electric cars are the way to go towards a cleaner and greener future. But that does not mean they are perfect. For one thing, their batteries have to be recharged frequently, which can be cumbersome and time-consuming. But what if a car recharged itself on the go? Enter Lightyear One,…
Two Malaysian animal rights organizations are up in arms over what they say are the appalling conditions in which several animals are kept at Kemaman Zoo in Terengganu. Malaysian Friends of the Animals and Friends of the Orangutans are calling on the management of the zoo, which started operations in…
“Exotic” turtles have long been at risk in Malaysia. Exhibit A: Four Indian men were detained last year in two separate sting operations for possessing a total of 1,070 exotic and endangered turtles belonging to several species. In one of the raids, two Indian nationals were nabbed by Wildlife Crime…
In parts of Bangkok many residents keep on encountering unwanted visitors to their homes: snakes that set up camp in toilets and various nooks. Such unwelcome visits have never been uncommon in the Thai capital, which is situated in a floodplain. Yet the number of home intrusions by slithering serpents…
An endangered Malayan tapir was killed in a road accident, then it was presently skinned and dismembered by several men who decided to retrieve its body parts. Around the same time, over the Christmas holidays, an endangered Malayan sun bear, too, was run down and killed in a road accident….
These aren’t good times for Malaysia’s wild elephants. Over the past few months several of them have died, having been poached for their ivory, run down on roads by cars, or gunned down by irate plantation workers. Now yet another elephant is dead. An elderly female pachyderm died after being…
Plastic bottles and bottle caps. Plastic candy wrappers and plastic shopping bags. Plastic cups and plastic boxes. Plastic shoes and plastic flip-flops. Plastic cigarette lighters and plastic toothbrushes. There are billions upon billions of such random pieces of plastic waste floating around in the ocean and marine animals have ended…
Cows, like all large herbivores, produce lots of manure. Some of that manure can be used as a fertilizer or, when dried and caked, as fuel. Yet most of the dung produced by cattle still goes to waste. The Japanese automaker Toyota now wants to change that by making good…
Malaysia has only two Sumatran rhinos left and both of them, a male and a female, are in captivity. It’s no surprise then that when Iman, the female, fell seriously ill recently her keepers became exceedingly concerned. Not long ago Puntung, another female rhino, had to be put down after…
Millions of people love animals and they also love taking pictures. And they definitely love taking pictures of “cute” and “exotic” animals. Such pictures are extremely popular on social media, where they can get thousands upon thousands of likes. In fact, some such photos have gone viral globally. There’s just…
Imagine being locked into a grimy little enclosure just so that people can stare at you. You’re nothing but an exhibit for the amusement of others, yet your keepers care little about your wellbeing. And this goes on for years. Horrific? It sure is. Yet this is the fate that…
Elephants are highly intelligent social animals. It is this trait of these wonderful creatures that is on full display in a moving new advert by the World Wide Fund for Nature. In the one-minute video, which is available on YouTube, an African Elephant watches helplessly as poachers shot dead members…
Snakes may not be the most beloved of creatures, but they perform vital ecological functions. Importantly, they are middle-order predators that play a vital role in pest control by feeding on rats and other destructive animals whose numbers would grow disastrously if not kept in check by snakes. But now,…
The Penang South Reclamation Scheme looks good on paper … at least to local politicians and developers. It would be a massive overhaul of the fast-developing island’s southern shoreline complete with the construction of two new artificial islands off the coast (of about 2,000 acres and 1,300 acres respectively) with…
Corals around the planet are in trouble. They are fragile creatures that are prone to suffer harm even from moderate changes in water temperatures, levels of salinity and degrees of acidity. Yet climate change has been battering the planet’s coral reefs, including those in the Pacific and in Malaysian waters,…
Two sun bears and a Malayan tapir. Three endangered animals perished on Malaysian roads in as many days over the Christmas holidays. Time for a sigh of “not again!” Indeed. On December 22 a tapir was run down and killed on the Jalan Seremban-Kuala Pilah road. A group of men…
