Which wild pigs are running amok in Malaysia? And why now?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:

 

 

Which wild pigs are running amok in Malaysia? And why now?

 

KUALA LUMPUR-- Rampaging wild pigs are a problem in Malaysia,

practically all sources agree. Less clear is which wild pigs are the

culprits.

Malaysia has native warty pigs and bearded pigs, as well as

abundant feral domestic pigs--and they can hybridize.

The warty pigs and bearded pigs are subjects of conservation

concern, albeit perhaps more as prey for highly endangered tigers

than for their own sake. Malaysia now has as few as 500 tigers,

down from more than 3,000 circa 1950.

Feral and hybrid pigs are also prey for tigers, but

conservationists tend to view feral and hybrid pigs as unwelcome

competitors for warty and bearded pig habitat.

Both conservationists and ordinary rural Malaysians also

worry that because pigs of domestic ancestry tend to live closer to

human habitation, they might draw tigers closer too, into greater

likelihood of attacking humans. Unlike in India, where much of the

human population is uniquely tolerant of occasional fatal attacks by

wildlife, any attack in Malaysia tends to result in the animal's

demise. If wildlife officials fail to hunt the suspected animal(s)

down, vigilantes intervene.

Reports of miscreant pig behavior seldom distinguish among

the species. Perhaps all Malaysian wild pigs are now behaving badly.

On the other hand, perhaps the pig incidents of today are a

delayed consequence of the Nipah virus outbreak of 1999, when

efforts to eradicate much of the domestic pig population sent any pig

who could escape the killing into the hills on the run.

Seven years later, the descendants of refugee pigs and any

other pigs the refugees met in flight may be trying to reclaim their

ancestral habitat in muddy village streets and dumps.

Pigs have not been well thought of by most Malaysians in many

centuries, if ever. Neither the Muslim majority (58%) nor most of

the Hindu minority (7%) eat pork. The Muslims, especially, tend

to consider pigs unclean. The ethnic Chinese minority (28%) do eat

and raise pigs--and that has been a frequent flashpoint for racial

and sectarian conflict, when entrepreneurs have tried to raise pigs

in the wrong villages or wrong neighborhoods,

At least 108 Malaysians died of the mysterious Nipah virus

during the first half of 1999. Almost all of them worked at pig

farms, or lived near pig farms. The native reservoir for Nipah

virus turned out to be wild fruit bats, also known as flying foxes.

Historically, the bats lived in deep forest and kept to

themselves. In early 1999, however, deforestation associated with

log poaching and forest fires set to clear land for slash-and-burn

agriculture drove thousands of hungry bats away from their mountain

homes, into agricultural districts, where rotting produce collected

for pigs provided an alternative food source.

Sick and weak, many bats died. Pigs ate them, incubated

the Nipah virus, and passed it to their caretakers.

The Malaysia government sought to contain Nipah virus by

sending soldiers to kill more than a million pigs between mid-March

and mid-May 1999. About 1,800 pig farms were closed, impoverishing

an estimated 300,000 Malaysians, mostly ethnic Chinese, whose

livelihoods had depended on the pork industry.

Despite the discontent of the former pig farmers,

pig-related problems seemed for a time to cease being a public issue.

Complaints voiced in the Malaysia Star in early 2005 concerned wild

pigs making noise at night, uprooting banana trees, smashing flower

pots, and biting a dog who tried to chase marauding pigs back to the

jungle.

On April 5, 2005, however, in Kampung Nakhoda, a

rampaging boar injured three-year-old Mohd Manshah Saputra and two

men in their fifties who apparently tried to come to his aid.

Running into a mosque, widely seen as an act of desecration, the

boar was cornered and shot.

On November 25, 2005, a boar charged into a private school

at Taman Angsa Mas in Kuala Sawah, Rantau, scattering 15 children,

injuring a six-year-old, and repeatedly biting four-year-old Tan Pei

Fun, who received 10 stitches. Forty hunters spent three days

tracking and killing the boar.

The wild attacks seemed to focus continuing background

concern about disease transmission and pollution associated with pigs.

Malacca state rural development and agriculture committee

chair Yunus Husin in March 2006 ordered that the Malacca pig herd be

reduced from about 120,000 to just 48,000, " which is enough to meet

demand in Malacca, " wrote Star reporters Lee Yuk Peng and Christina

Tan.

" The number of pigs are to be reduced because of water

pollution and the smell, and as a precaution against possible

outbreaks of the Nipah virus and other diseases, " explained Husin.

" I hope non-Muslims will be more sensitive to this matter, "

said state assembly member Abu Pit.

But reducing the numbers of owned pigs seemed to have no

effect on the behavior of feral pigs.

On June 14, 2006 two boars attacked K. Nagaraju, 44, as he

sprayed pesticide at Felcra Serting, Bahau. One boar chased

Nagaraju when he fled, knocked him down, and bit him to death on

the chest and stomach. Game rangers shot the boar at the scene about

an hour later.

On November 4, 2006, a boar invaded a restaurant in

Kuantan, biting Abdullah Hamid Bakar, 48, before passer-by Nik

Hassan Nik Lah, 41, clubbed and stabbed the boar to death.

Charged by a boar on November 30, 2006, while feeding her

chickens, Apipah Ahmad, 63, of Kuala Kangsar, prayed for

deliverance while suffering multiple bites on her hands, legs, and

back. " I fell down as the boar ran toward me and began gnawing at

my body, " she told the Star. " When he went for my face, I could

only use both my hands to fend him off. But when I shouted 'God is

great' three times, the boar suddenly fell on his side, enabling me

to run to safety. "

Children were previously attacked by wild pigs in the same

neighborhood, the Star reported, and an elderly motorcyclist had

been killed when he hit a boar.

" We don't understand why these animals are now coming out

from the jungle to our house, " said Jeorge Subramaniam, 56, after

one recent incident.

But there appear to be more pigs than ever in the dwindling

Malaysian forests. Like the people whose houses and farms keep

expanding into former rainforest, the pigs have few other places to

go.

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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