(MY) - Novelty or cruelty?

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Sunday October 2, 2005 - The Star

 

 

Novelty or cruelty?

 

By WONG LI ZA

 

The recent rescues of Nicky (tiger cub) and Monty the python from certain

death in the pot have revealed that the illegal trade in wildlife and

protected species is far from extinct in this country.

 

WOO Siew Leng (not her real name) recalls eating the occasional python soup

or stewed monitor lizard during her childhood.

 

Her father, a fisherman, had friends who frequently hunted wild boar,

pythons, civets and monitor lizards.

 

There were also turtles, tortoise and once, a monkey, says Woo, but “I never

used to eat any of it. It was just too weird, but the rest of my family

did.”

 

Woo, a 30-year-old insurance agent, says the meat was consumed for specific

purposes.

 

To her knowledge, pythons and monitor lizards were good for “cleansing the

blood” while monkey meat, boiled with herbs, was good for coughs, she

explains.

 

“My dad used to eat them all the time but stopped after he suffered a mild

stroke at age 63. That’s because wildlife meat is believed to induce high

blood pressure.”

 

The chatty Woo also remembers, with a slight shudder, a shack at the back of

her old house that stored jars of Chinese wine.

 

That would be nothing out of the ordinary except that floating in the middle

of the jars were baby rats or chicks (mou gai in Cantonese).

 

(The mou gai wine is still consumed by some women undergoing confinement and

the baby rat wine is used to heal bruises.)

 

The illegal trade in exotic meat and wildlife made headlines in August when

a tiger cub was rescued from sure death in the pot, thanks to Malaysian

trade commissioner to Papua New Guinea Datuk Dr S. H. Foo.

 

Later named Nicky by zookeepers at the Malacca Zoo, the then three-month-old

cub was caught by villagers in Rompin, Pahang and sold to a Chinese

restaurant in Kuala Lumpur.

 

Foo heard about Nicky, a Malayan tiger, and bought her from the restaurant

owner for an undisclosed sum of money before handing her over to the

Wildlife Department.

 

In early September, three investment bankers paid RM3,000 to a wildlife

trader in Sepang to save a 6.1m python from ending up as one or more dishes

as well.

 

Believed to be 15 years old, the python, a protected species, is now at the

Malacca Zoo.

 

The illegal wildlife trade has been a perennial problem for both NGOS and

the Department of Wildlife and National Parks.

 

Although well-meaning people have bought off the animals to save them,

buying and selling of wildlife without the necessary permits is actually an

offence under the Protection of Wild Life Act 1972.

 

According to director-general of the Department of Wildlife and National

Parks Peninsular Malaysia Datuk Musa Nordin, it unintentionally supports the

illegal wildlife trade and creates a new market for the traders in the form

of the “rescuers”.

 

The main perpetrators, of course, remain the illegal traders, whose crimes

are fuelled by continual demand for animal parts to be used for medicinal

purposes, as aphrodisiacs, trophies, luxury items, and exotic food. Live

animals are also traded as exotic pets.

 

Restaurants serving exotic dishes can be found in many places in the

country.

 

In one such restaurant in the Klang Valley, the menu included dishes not for

the faint-hearted – snake soup, fried squirrel, black pepper serow (mountain

goat), turtle soup, stir-fried monitor lizard, stewed crocodile and wild

boar curry.

 

Prices range from less than RM5 for the soups (one serving) to less than

RM20 for the dishes (small to medium sizes).

 

When one of the restaurant workers was asked if they served tiger meat or

sun bear paw, she said not for a long time because there was a lack of

supplies, apparently due to strict enforcement.

 

Another interesting item on the menu was something called “3+6”, which in

Cantonese sounds the same as “dog”.

 

According to Andy Ho (not his real name), people are more hesitant when it

comes to dog meat because the origin is unknown, unlike wildlife, which is

found in natural surroundings and “eats what nature provides”.

 

Ho, 30, says people generally ate exotic food to boost energy and improve

health.

 

On his part, he admits, it’s more for the novelty of it.

 

Even so, Ho insists, he and his friends rarely patronise such restaurants.

 

“Such food when eaten too often can be ‘heaty' for the body. There is a

popular saying that too much exotic meat leads to a nose bleed!” he says

with a laugh.

 

Since exotic foods are also highly sought after for their aphrodisiac

properties, it is not unusual for a group of men to frequent such

restaurants.

 

In fact, Ho says, there were usually brothels located near such restaurants

for obvious reasons.

 

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