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Malaysian wild animals to be filmed for American TV

Category: BSBCC, education | Date: Oct 26 2009 | By: Siew Te Wong

By MUGUNTAN VANAR

KOTA KINABALU: American animal expert Jack Hanna, popularly known as “Jungle Jack” is in Malaysia for a television shoot of the wild.

The 62-year-old is in Sabah to film orang utans, sunbears, proboscis monkeys and pygmy elephants in the wilds of Borneo for his entertainment and educational television show “Jack Hanna’s Into The Wild.”

Hanna and his crew will also be heading towards Sarawak and peninsular Malaysia during his two-week trip to Malaysia and Singapore for at least four 30-minute television series.

Invited by Tourism Malaysia, Hanna told reporters here that the great apes and elephants had always fascinated him and that it was the first time he was doing a show on orang utan and the Borneo pygmy elephants.

‘’I have always wanted to come to Malaysia but my tight schedules around the world delayed me. I am really excited to be here in Borneo,” said Hanna who has been hosting educational animal shows for the last 43 years.

In Sabah, he will focus on the Sandakan Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre, Sunbear Conservation, Guamuntong caves, Kinabatangan and Labuk Bay before leaving for Kuching where he will focus on the Sarawak Cultural Village and Bakun National Park.

He will briefly visit Singapore before heading to Batu Caves and Kuala Gandar Elephant Sanctuary in the peninsula.

“Our show is about people, culture and animals,” said Hanna whose shows reach 98% of the audience in the United States.

He is a regular guest in Good Morning America, Larry King Live, The Late Show with David Letterman and Fox News Programmes.

Hanna, who stresses on respecting animals in their habitats, the theme of his series were to educate people on the various animals as it was a foundation towards conservation efforts.

“When I say respect animals, I mean you should just leave them to do what they are doing in their habitat and not disturb or provoke them,” he added.

Hanna said that his company allowed the host country to get rights to use his films for their respective promotions.

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Arrest of Cambodians highlights rising poaching concerns in Malaysia’s protected areas

Category: poaching | Date: Jun 10 2009 | By: Siew Te Wong

http://www.traffic.org/home/2009/5/26/arrest-of-cambodians-highlights-rising-poaching-concerns-in.html

Arrest of Cambodians highlights rising poaching concerns in Malaysia’s protected areas

en Français

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 26 May 2009—Three Cambodian poachers with a stash of Wild Boar and argus pheasant meat, agarwood and snares have been nabbed by the National Parks and Wildlife Department (Perhilitan) at their hideout in a forest reserve in Malaysia’s northern state of Perak.

The trio was part of a larger group of seven men who had been poaching protected species in the Bintang Hijau Forest Reserve in Ulu Lawin, near the town of Gerik.

Perak Perhilitan director Shabrina Mohd Shariff said the department deployed a team of 15 enforcement officers on Saturday after a tip-off.

“My men managed to catch three of them while the rest slipped into the forest under the cover of darkness,” she told the press.

The seven, who had earlier hunted the protected animals in the forest, were resting when they were surprised by enforcement officers.

Officers seized 9.5 kg of smoked Wild Boar meat, 1.9 kg of smoked Wild Boar meat with heads, ribs and limbs, 1.4 kg of argus pheasant meat, 2.6 kg of agarwood and a sack full of argus pheasant feathers.

They also found 52 snares of various sizes, four machetes and three axes.“TRAFFIC applauds the department and urged it not to stop at catching poachers, but to follow the trail to the illegal wildlife traders they supply,” said Julia Ng, TRAFFIC Southeast Asia’s Senior Programme Officer.

“These traders must also be caught, prosecuted and handed out the maximum permissible fines, as they are the ones that fuel the demand for wildlife from the poachers,” she added.

Poaching in protected areas is an issue of increasing concern in Malaysia, and the high market value of agarwood, known as gaharu in the Malay language, is often the reason for organized groups spending long periods in the forest, feeding themselves on whatever wild animal species they can capture.

Areas like the Bintang Hijau Forest Reserve where the Cambodian poachers were arrested are home to many threatened species such as Sumatran Rhinoceros, Clouded Leopard and Sambar deer.

The area is also is an important tiger landscape as outlined in Malaysia’s National Tiger Action Plan and it is not the only area being targeted by poachers.

The State of Perak which lies in the north and borders Thailand has already seen several arrests of poachers in protected areas this year after authorities stepped up enforcement efforts.

On 15 January, officers from Malaysia’s Anti-Smuggling Unit detained two Thai nationals attempting to smuggle seven Pig-tailed Macaques from a forested area in Bukit Berapit, near the Malaysia–Thailand border. They were sentenced to a MYR4,500 (USD1,282) fine or two months jail each.

On 4 March, three more Thai nationals were caught with several protected birds in Felda Kelian Intan, in Pengkalan Hulu district. The case is now before the courts.

In operations on 28 and 29 April in Sungai Mendelum, which lies within Perak state’s premier park—the Royal Belum Forest Reserve—authorities also uncovered poaching camps and confiscated six wire snares.

WWF-Malaysia’s previous surveys in Perak have also found signs of local and foreign encroachment and poaching along highways that provides the access points into such forest complexes 

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How you can help us to protect wildlife in Malaysia

Category: poaching, threats | Date: May 05 2009 | By: Siew Te Wong

In view of the recent incident where armed poachers lay siege of the forest office base, there has been many concerns and comments from the readers. Thank you all for your comments. You all raised appropriate concerns over the incident, both to the wildlife that loss their lives in these massacres, as well as the protectors of wildlife who almost loss their life on duty.

As the wildlife habitat shrinking as we speak due to human activities in these wild land, the value of each existing individual wildlife is even higher. Each and every single one of them is important to the survival of the population and later on the entire species. There are so many species of wildlife on Earth that has been whipped out in so many places on Earth. The extinction of a species will never be reversible. Borneo is the last stronghold of magnificent SE Asian’s wildlife. This island is considered as one of the last secure place for many wildlife species.

Yet, we as a dominant species on Earth, we destroyed their habitat in many ways in the name of modern development, wealth, demand to meet someone’s needs and greed. This kind of killing should not take place in the first place. But yet, it happened. We have to stop this act no matter what!

Here is what you can help to improve our wildlife protection in Malaysia:

1) Show supports to the staff of Sabah Forestry Department who injured in the line of duty. Write to the director of the forestry department at http://www.forest.sabah.gov.my/more/contact.asp to show your support and urge them to continue the protection of the forest and wildlife.

2) Sign the petition that was set up the at http://www.petitiononline.com/MYLaw/petition.html. The petition was set up last year and wishes to collect 100,000 signatures by June 2009. It seem impossible now because pathetically only 4849 signatures have been collected up until today. Anyway you can read more at sunbears.wildlifedirect.org/2008/10/25/we-need-your-help-to-protect-wildlife-in-malaysia/ and relevant posting on this blog.

3) Support conservation work in Sabah by supporting LEAP’s work at http://www.leapspiral.org/main.html. LEAP is an NGO base in Sabah that created BSBCC. Please visit their brand new website and learn more about our works! http://www.leapspiral.org/Thank you all for your supports!

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