There is a bit of excellent news for the Malayan tiger in the Year of the Tiger regardless of dire reviews of its tiny, dwindling inhabitants numbers.
Poaching in the Royal Belum State Park, an necessary supply space for the animal, has fallen to almost zero in the previous 24 months, says Perak State Parks Corporation head Shah Redza Hussein.
The breeding of wild tigers in the park has additionally elevated, he provides.
“Based on the number of encroachment incidents we have detected and the number of snares that have been reduced to two this year, poaching has been reduced by almost 98%,” says Shah Redza.
He attributes this to elevated patrolling, particularly by the company’s park rangers, the Orang Asli Menraq Patrol Unit, in addition to WWF-Malaysia members.
“The Royal Belum State Park is the best protected state park in the country.”
Shah Redza says with the discount in poaching in addition to enhancement measures resembling prey enrichment from the re-introduction of sambar deer in the forest, the breeding of tigers in the wild in Royal Belum has additionally improved.
For the primary time in years, poaching has been lowered significantly in Perak, says Shah Redza. — AZHAR MAHFOF/The Star“We recently spotted one mother with four cubs,” he says throughout an interview after his speak on “The Need to Protect Our Forest and Biodiversity” throughout a People Library event in Taman Tugu, Kuala Lumpur.
Showing a photograph captured from a digital camera lure of the mom tiger and its cubs, Shah Redza says the infants’ stripes have been checked towards a database to decide that they’re certainly new animals (a tiger’s striping is exclusive, like a fingerprint).
The re-introduction of sambar deer, which is presently beneath a six-year moratorium from searching starting in 2016, has been essential for the survival of the tigers, says Shah Redza.
“Sambar deer are the optimal prey for tigers and the data correlates with tiger breeding.
“Preying on a wild boar or smaller animals means that a tiger can only be full for about a day but it’s up to five days for a sambar deer.
“With their bellies full, the tigers can focus on other areas, such as reproduction,” he explains.
The sambar deer re-introduced into Royal Belum is taken from Perhilitan’s (Wildlife and National Parks Department) National Wildlife Rescue Centre in Sungkai, Perak.
The preliminary outcomes of the primary National Tiger Survey, carried out from 2016 to 2018, had revealed that there are fewer than 200 tigers in 75% of the surveyed plots.
The survey coated eight main tiger habitats in Peninsular Malaysia, in Johor, Kedah, Kelantan, Negri Sembilan, Pahang, Perak, Selangor and Terengganu.
Believed to be over 130 million years outdated, the Belum-Temenggor Forest Complex is the biggest contiguous forest advanced in Peninsular Malaysia, and the Royal Belum State Park, which is situated inside it, measures some 117,500ha.
Besides the Malayan tiger, the park can also be residence to all 10 species of hornbills in the nation in addition to the biggest bovine, the gaur, which is greater than the American bison and is listed as susceptible on IUCN’s (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List.
Shah Redza says poaching in Malaysia is normally carried out by international syndicates that prepare for his or her males to fly into the nation beneath the guise of engaged on plantations or in the development sector.
“While we have a few poachers who cross borders, the majority of them stay here for up to five months, going deep into the forest, setting up wire snares and checking on them after a month.
“If they manage to snare a tiger, they would have hit the jackpot because the animal is worth around RM250,000,” he says, including that after medicine, counterfeit items and human trafficking, wildlife trafficking is now the fourth largest transboundary prison exercise in the world.
Local poachers, he explains, have a tendency to solely hunt smaller prey on weekends, resembling wild boar or deer, for meat and keep on the fringes of the forest.
Shah Redza, who’s the 2020 world recipient of the Dr Rimington Award for Tiger Conservation, says there may be going to be an Asean Transboundary Heritage Park settlement for Royal Belum, which borders the Hala Bala wildlife sanctuary and the Banglang National Park in Thailand. Taken along with the 2 areas, the realm measures over 300,000ha in dimension.
“We will be recognised, at least in Asean, as one contiguous area that needs to be protected. Because it’s transboundary, we have all the international agreements to work out but we have a good working relationship with our Thai counterparts,” he says.
StarWay of life is operating a collection of articles on the conservation of Malayan tigers in conjunction with the Year of the Tiger 2022. Join us as we report on the race to save from extinction this magnificent animal that’s on our nationwide crest.
