In pictures: Malaysian illicit wildlife trade

Pangolins: Natural Pest Controllers and Soil Caretakers

Pangolins play an important ecological role, providing ‘pest’ control and improving soil quality.

What the heck is a pangolin? Aside from being a very unique, insectivorous creature and the most trafficked mammal in the international illegal wildlife trade, these scaly anteaters also have a job — a very important one!

Pangolins provide earth with all-natural pest control and are fantastic tenders of soil, and they do these things simply through their everyday behaviors. Tens of millions of years of pangolin evolution have produced an incredible specimen that is perfectly adapted for the niche they occupy. 

Their mere presence, in conjunction with that of the other organisms and processes within the habitat they live in, is absolutely imperative to continued healthy ecosystem functioning.

Pangolins are soil caretakers

Their large and elongated claws enable them to burrow underground for shelter and to excavate ant and termite nests for food. In doing so, the soil is mixed and aerated—much like what happens when we rototill gardens or plow crop fields.

This improves the nutrient quality of the soil and aids the decomposition cycle, providing a healthy substrate for lush vegetation to grow from. When abandoned, their underground burrows also provide habitat for other animals.

Forget the exterminator, call in the pangolin!

It is said that a single pangolin consumes as much as 70 million insects per year—mainly ants and termites. Seventy million! That’s about 191,780 insects per day! Imagine an area that is home to 15 pangolins. Those animals alone could potentially eat as many as 1.05 billion insects annually! 

Comparatively, the U.S. National Park Service says individuals of some bat species are said to eat as many as 3,000 bugs each night, which could mean a total of almost 1.1 million a year. As you can imagine, pangolins certainly help to control their insect prey’s numbers, contributing to the delicate balance of the ecosystems they inhabit. 

However, humans also benefit from the pangolin’s work. Researchers at Ohio State University claim billions of dollars are spent annually on repairing termite damage and treating and preventing infestations. Healthy populations of scaly anteaters throughout their historic range can help to alleviate these problems.

Don’t fire the pangolins!

Ecosystems are maintained only when all of their components—biotic and abiotic—work synergistically, with each one doing its “job”. The extinction of pangolins may seem like a minimal loss, but the more parts you remove from a system, the closer it becomes to collapse.

Poaching pangolins to supply black market demand for their flesh, scales, and fetuses—which stems from East and Southeast Asia, particularly China and Vietnam—has become the number one threat to these magnificent creatures. This threat is closely followed by habitat loss. Daily, we are inching closer and closer to losing pangolins forever, as a result.

The existence of forests where pangolins “work” and live relies on these insectivores to do their “jobs”. It’s up to us to make sure pangolins aren’t exterminated, themselves!

Watch some pangolin pest control in action in this video from National Geographic!

Resource: pangolins.org

Wildlife Dept Seizes Over 900 Protected Animals

The Department of Wildlife and National Parks seized over 900 protected animals valued at about RM35,000 in a raid on a cowshed in Jalan Lama Riverside, Bedong, yesterday.

Kedah Wildlife and National Parks director Rahim Ahmad said today monitor lizards and snakes were found in a cage that was hidden in a container while tortoises were found in plastic baskets near the cowshed.

He said the raid was conducted at 2 pm after the cowshed was placed under surveillance for several days following a tip-off that wild animals were being kept for sale at the premises.

“Among the animals seized were 287 monitor lizards, 189 snakes, 30 tortoises, 272 coura amboinesis tortoises and 124 big tortoises,” he told reporters.

Members of the public with information on crimes related to protected animals can contact the Kedah Wildlife and National Parks Department at 04-7312200, he said.

Resource: Bernama

Tapirs losing out

BENDUL, the Malayan tapir, is a sorry sight. Unlike the other tapirs at the Sungai Dusun Wildlife Conservation Centre which have hefty, robust bodies, Bendul is almost all skin and bones. Her coat is dull and grey, not a healthy shine like that on the others. Her ribcage shows under her skin and her body is badly scarred.

She was named after the place where she was found loitering in late September, a village in Ulu Bendul some 16km from Seremban in Negri Sembilan, and arrived at the centre wounded and starving.

"After trapping her, we had planned to return her to the forest but when we saw that she had a bullet wound which was infested with maggots, we decided to bring her here," says Mahathir Mohamad who heads the Sungai Dusun centre, located in the upper reaches of Selangor about 90 minutes' drive from Kuala Lumpur.

From the tell-tale size and shape of the wound, wildlife officers believe Bendul had been shot by wild boar hunters, probably mistakenly. "Villagers say they have seen the tapir with two young. We searched but could not find the juveniles. We believe they have also been shot," says Mahathir.

At Sungai Dusun, a 4,330ha sprawl of protected peatswamp and lowland dipterocarp forest near the Selangor-Perak boundary which is both a rescue and captive breeding centre, Bendul is seen chomping on the leaves of the mengkirai, nangka and mahang trees which keepers have collected from the forest. Soon, she will be fed nutrition-laden pellets to fatten her up. At the centre, she joins six other tapirs - four of which are captive-breds and two, also rescued tapirs.

Bendul is the latest statistic in a growing list of displaced tapirs. As forests give way to human settlements, plantations and industrial development, and are fragmented by roads, tapirs are crowded out. They now number only between 1,100 and 1,500 in Peninsular Malaysia, and can no longer be found in Borneo.

The Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) has recorded an upward trend in tapir displacements: five cases in 2006, 25 in 2007, 39 in 2008, 22 in 2009 and 41 in 2010. Of the 142 cases seen during that period, the majority (95) were of tapirs which had ventured out of their normal habitats into villages, plantations, logging areas, forest fringes and roadsides. Fifteen were roadkills, 12 were wounded tapirs which eventually died from the injuries, and 20 were tapirs sent to Sungai Dusun, Zoo Melaka and other protected areas.

The cases mostly occurred in Pahang (46) and Johor (32), followed by Negri Sembilan (21), Selangor (17) and Terengganu (15). 

Resource article:  The Star/Asia News Network

Interpol Launches Campaign to Protect Threatened Tiger

International police organization Interpol said it was imperative that the 13 nations where tigers can still be found, including Indonesia, work together to combat wildlife crime. (EPA Photo)

Hanoi. Interpol on Wednesday launched a new campaign to coordinate the global fight against tiger poaching, warning that failure to protect the endangered cats would have economic and social repercussions.

The international police organization said it was imperative that the 13 nations where tigers can still be found, including Indonesia, work together to combat wildlife crime.

David Higgins, manager of Interpol’s environment crime program, said the extinction of the tiger would impact not only biodiversity but the “economic stability and security stability” of countries where they are now found.

“The communities, the nations will lose confidence in their governments, and their good governance and their rule of law to be able to protect an iconic species such as the tiger from criminality,” he said in Vietnam.

Interpol’s new Project Predator is designed to help coordinate efforts of police, customs and wildlife officials in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.

“Illegal trade and trafficking in tiger parts and products is rampant across international borders, making enforcement of laws against it a challenge,” Interpol said in a statement released at its annual general meeting in Hanoi.

Project Predator, which has US, British and World Bank funding, will also share information with conservation agencies in an effort to raise awareness.

Higgins said law enforcement was “not the only answer” and greater education and poverty reduction were also needed.

Tiger numbers have been devastated by poaching and loss of habitat in the last century, falling from an estimated 100,000 in 1900 to fewer than 3,500 now, Interpol said.

The big cats, which are hunted for their fur, bones and other parts, are expected to be extinct by 2022 if left unprotected, according to wildlife group WWF.

Deputy head of Vietnam’s department of environmental crimes, Major General Vu Hong Vuong, told reporters that the country had more than 110 tigers — although 80 of these were kept in captivity.

“We have detected several cases of tiger trafficking from Thailand, through Laos, Myanmar to Vietnam and then to China. We need the cooperation from police of other countries in the protection of wild animals, especially tigers,” he said.

Resource article: Agence France-Presse