Malaysian news - of zoos, crows, wildllife reserves and complaint on animal show

[Guest guest]

The Star - 19 Feb. 02

 

Each year S'pore's three wildlife parks - the Zoo, Night Safari and the

BirdPark airfreight dozens of their charges to parks worldwide to help with

breeding or educational programmes. In exchange, exotic species such as the

white rhinoceros from South Africa, white tigers from Indonesia and snowy

owls from Canada have made their way here.

 

Like hundreds of other animals sent overseas, Hsing Hsing, an orang utan was

packed off to Perth when he was eight, under an exchange programme practised

by

the three wildlife parks.

 

The Star - 5.3.02.

 

The Singapore Environment Ministry would spend S$1mil to meet this year's

cull target of 50 000 crows. Getting the pesky scavengers to move on can be

as simple as spraying a special chemical around their roosting area.

The chemical, derived from grapes, drives crows crazy but has no harmful

effect on humans or the environment. The chemical, an anti-bird chemical,

called Methyl Anthranilate, irritates them and gets them to move to

less-populated areas where they won't bother residents.

 

Straits Times - 17.1.02.

 

The Johor government admitted it had unintentionally de-gazetted a small

area of wildlife reserve. The MB said it was not the policy of the State

Government to de-gazette wildlife and forest reserves. He said the State

would gazette new areas for wildlife reserves that had been de-gazetted.

Johor has seven wildlife reserve areas.

The Science, Technology and Environment Minister said several States had

de-gazetted their wildlife reserves without consulting the Federal

Government. The Ministry was looking into the matter as wildlife reserves

were under the ambit of the Federal government.

 

The Wildlife Protection Act 1972 requires State authorities to refer to the

ministry when seeking to change the functions of wildlife reserves. In

Kuantan, the Pahang government denied it had de-gazette any of its wildlife

reserves without consulting the Science, Technology and Environment

Ministry.

 

The media writes with regard to the above:

Charles Dickens observed that the law is an ass. The law is made an ass of

by the authorities who, as custodians of the law, fail to enforce it, and by

the offenders who flout it. This seems to be the case with the States that

have de-gazetted their wildlife reserves without consulting the Science,

Technology and Environment Ministry.

 

The Wildlife Protection Act 1972 requires State authorities to refer to the

ministry when seeking to change to functions of wildlife reserves. No

matter how compelling the reasons, States cannot unilaterally change the

status quo of the de-gazetted land without the consent of the Federal

Government. Without the ministry's agreement, the projects on the land are

deemed illegal.

 

According to the Minister Datuk Law, the areas affected are small and the

violations could have been an oversight. There is a tiresome sense of

familiarity to it all and to what will follow: The ministry will look into

it: there will be promises of firm action but a few months or years of

inaction later, there will be pronouncement on the same or similar offence.

 

In advancing the excuse of " an oversight " for the States' dark deeds, Law

gives the impression that the ministry is suffering from a complete

paralysis of initiative to either ensure compliance or co-operation by the

States. Such a feeble and ineffectual response will only encourage the

States to ignore the Federal Government and encroach into its jurisdiction.

Law must mean business when dealing with the recalcitrant States which flout

the law.

 

Letter of complaint on the National Zoo - Straits Times - 4.1.02.

 

On Dec 30, I took my young niece from Penang to the National Zoo. While

walking around, we spotted a poster announcing that there was an animal show

once in the morning and another at 3pm. So we walked over to the arena

around 2.50pm. By that time, there was already a sizeable crowd, but no

music or sound to announce any show. We waited and waited, all in vain. At

around 3.15pm some in the crowd had moved away but others continued to come

in, still waiting for the show to start. There was no sign of any animal

show or announcement or any sign mentioning there was no performance for

that day.

I think it is simply shameful (let alone disgusting) of the zoo officials to

not spot that big crowd at the arena and at least make it known there would

be no show rather than simply do nothing about it.

The irony of it is there are two A4-sized leaflets stuck on the two pillars

announcing the following " Don't miss the show " and in small print " This

activity is subject to change without prior notice. "

To expect visitors to read the small print in the leaflet is definitely not

customer-friendly.

This is not the way to treat visitors to our National Zoo especially when

there are outstation and overseas visitors, too. What kind of zoo officials

do we hire in our national zoo - only those that look after the animals?

 

Response from Zoo Negara - Straits Times 8.1.02

 

I would like to thank K. C. Yong of Kajang, for his complaint and would like

to extend our apologies to all visitors who were waiting for the animal show

at the zoo on Dec 30.

 

Being a non-profit organisation, we are limited in our resources and these

include our show presenters and trained animals.

When a problem occurs such as the one we had with one of our animals on that

day, our show was affected and a decision made to cancel it.

Due to the urgency of the problem, our staff were involved in rectifying the

situation and we could not inform the audience in time. We did make an

announcement, which nevertheless was late.

We would like to apologise to all for the inconvenience. We will ensure that

such a situation will not happen again.

 

 

 

 

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