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….
A half century ago there were still around 3,000 tigers in the wild around Malaysia. Today there may well be as few as 250 left, less than a tenth of that figure. And if we don’t do all we can to save the last few hundred tigers, there won’t be…
A small slap on the wrist is how conservationist groups see the sentence handed down in Ipoh to a man who was convicted of having been in illegal possession of the carcass of a Malayan tiger. The man was caught by Perhilitan officials as he was carrying the dead tiger…
One hundred newly planted saplings may not seem like all that many, yet these new saplings could now serve a vital function in helping save Malaysia’s last few wild tigers. That is because the saplings were planted at a strategic location in Puncak Botak within Pahang’s Sungai Yu Tiger Corridor….
Snow leopards are elusive creatures facing a host of challenges. They continue to be poached regularly and they also have fewer prey animals. It doesn’t help either that many of them live in armed conflict-prone areas in countries like Afghanistan where they are at increased risk of being killed. Yet…
Ending all poaching of Malayan tigers is an august goal, and key players in Malaysian have set out to do just that. Several governmental bodies (including the Malaysian Armed Forces, the Royal Malaysian Police and the Forestry Department) have joined forces with conservationist groups like WWF-Malaysia to save the nation’s…
Malayan tigers. Malayan sun bears. Bornean orangutans. Bornean pygmy elephants. Sunda pangolins. Clouded leopards. Marbled cats. Helmeted hornbills. Hawksbill turtles. The list goes on. The list of endangered animals in Malaysia, that is. May 20 is Endangered Species Day, which has been held for a dozen years worldwide by conservationists…
If Malaysia’s beleaguered tigers have something to fear more than poaching, it’s habitat loss. The majestic predators have seen their numbers drop precipitously over the past decades in tandem with the loss of the country’s forests and jungles. Once there were thousands of tigers roaming vast swathes of jungle. Today, a mere 340 tigers (at most)…
Among the big cats of the world, it isn’t just tigers that are in serious trouble. Cheetahs, those iconic speedy predators, are “sprinting towards the edge of extinction,” according to a team of experts from the Zoological Society of London, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the conservationist group Panthera. The team’s study shows that only…
Some of Malaysia’s most iconic and beloved animals are also its most endangered. They are beloved not because they are endangered; rather, they are endangered despite being beloved. This simple fact is something worth pondering. Take tigers. The very national identity of Malaysia is predicated on the majestic predators. Tigers are featured on the…
In its newly released Living Planet Report 2016, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has painted an alarming picture of the impending prospects of the planet’s wildlife. Unless we change course, the numbers of wild animals will have declined by a staggering 67% by the year 2020, a mere…
In a move hailed by conservationists as a major milestone, CITES has imposed a total worldwide ban on the sale of pangolins. Does that mean pangolins, including Malaysia’s own Sunda pangolins, are saved? That depends. A ban will only work if it is enforced vigorously in countries like Malaysia. And…
The images are graphic and their contents are certain to upset any animal lover. The photos, allegedly taken in Pahang and widely shared on social media by outraged Malaysians, show several young men posing with the body of a dead tiger. In one of the images a man is seen…
Malayan tigers, those eponymous icons of Malaysia, deserve better – much better. Once the reigning masters of the country’s forests, they have become thin on the ground, with a mere 300 or so of them left in the wild. They are so thin on the ground, in fact, that they…
Giant pandas – those cuddly mascots of wildlife conservation the world over. They are – drum rolls please! – endangered no more. They remain classified as “vulnerable,” though. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which on its Red List classifies a large variety of wild animals worldwide…
For most people, especially those living in urban areas, “biodiversity” is an abstract concept. It’s a term they may hear used by biologists and environmentalists but one that does not seem to have any relevance for their own lives. How wrong they are. The loss of biodiversity affects us all….