Malaysia - on tiger poaching and turtles

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Sunday Mail News: Endau-Rompin tigers killed for exotic-meat market

Siti Nurbaiyah Nadzmi

02 May 2004

 

DESPITE being a protected species in a forest reserve, tigers roaming the

Endau-Rompin gazetted area are still not safe from the poachers who hunt

them for their meat, which has a high demand overseas.

 

The fact that tiger meat looks no different than beef has made it even

easier for these poachers to transport the meat to nearby markets such as

exotic-meat restaurants in Singapore.

 

All a poacher needs to do is to cube the meat, dump it in a styrofoam box

and load it onto a car.

 

A short while later, the meat is ready to be served in a restaurant.

 

The Sunday Mail decided to investigate the smuggling of tiger meat following

complaints that the meat was being sold to some restaurants in Singapore.

 

We learnt that tiger meat is easily smuggled out of the country because its

texture is only slightly different from beef and an untrained eye would not

be able to spot the difference.

 

Banking on this, poachers usually kill the tigers on the spot, skin them and

cut them into small pieces so that it would look just like beef from the

supermarket.

 

A common method used by the poachers is to mix the tiger meat with other

exotic meat like wild boar, snake, monitor lizard and mousedeer, which are

killed and traded by licensed hunters.

 

The tiger meat would then be packed into styrofoam boxes and declared as

permitted exotic meat to the authorities.

 

An animal activist, who wished to remain anonymous, said he was once offered

a bowl of tiger soup at a restaurant in Singapore.

 

“The soup contained two pieces of chicken and a piece of unknown meat, I

doubt if it was tiger. The whole thing was a hoax, but I have also seen, at

a different restaurant on the island, what a tiger soup looks like,” he

said.

 

He said the price of each bowl of tiger soup was S$250 (around RM600). It is

also learnt that some Singaporean restaurant operators also obtain tiger

meat from Indonesia.

 

Last year, Wildlife Protection and National Parks enforcement officers

arrested a man in Permas, Johor Baru, with a trunk load of tiger bones

weighing 32kg.

 

Wildlife Protection and National Parks deputy director Ismail Mamat said the

bones were being taken to the Thai border.

 

“The bones are slightly smaller than a cow’s. If you are not familiar with

how tiger bones look like, you won’t be able to tell the difference,” he

said.

 

The man who was ferrying the tiger bones was sentenced to 10 days’ jail and

fined RM8,000.

 

The bones, which were meant for tiger soup, are priced at RM300 per kg and

as such, the trunk load of bones could have fetched more than RM900,000.

 

Obviously, to the man, the risk was more than worth it.

 

 

 

New Straits Times

16 Chinese found in possession of dead sea turtles remanded

By Jaswinder Kaur

 

KOTA KINABALU, SABAH, Wed: 5th May 2004

 

SIXTEEN Chinese nationals have been remanded three days to facilitate

investigations after 160 dead sea turtles were found in their possession.

 

The men aged 16 to 48, were produced before Kota Kinabalu subordinate court

senior registrar David Apin at about 11.15am.

 

Sabah Fisheries Department prosecuting officer Charles Galid said the 16

would be contacting Chinese Embassy officers in Kuala Lumpur with the help

of the police during the remand period.

 

Galid said if investigations were not over in three days, the department

would request their remand period be extended.

 

The 16 men were detained on board a fishing trawler near Mengalum, about 20

nautical miles from the city on Sunday.

 

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