LETTERS: It is a cruel irony that on May 23, a day after the International Day for Biological Diversity, Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) officers allegedly shot and killed seven dusky langurs, classified as "Protected Wildlife" under the First Schedule of the Wildlife Conservation Act 2010, and as "Near Threatened" under the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
It is unfathomable that trained and armed wildlife officers called to assist with the problem of aggressive long-tailed macaques would be unable to tell the difference between the shy and retiring dusky langurs and the admittedly bolder macaques.
The shooting of the langurs appears to have been executed unprofessionally, as instead of being merciful and quick, the suffering and agony of the langurs were unnecessarily prolonged, as described in the testimony of eyewitnesses.
We must remember that the population of stray animals and wild species explodes only when humans make changes to the environment and interfere with the lives of animals so significantly over a period of time that it changes the availability of food supply and the existence of predators and competitors of a particular species.
Ironically, the director-general of Perhilitan had, in an official pronouncement in March 2019, reminded the public not to kill or ill-treat wildlife, and warned the public that cruelty to wildlife was an offence under Section 86 of the Wildlife Conservation Act 2010.
The D-G also emphasised the need to protect wildlife and ensure the survival of endangered species, and sought the cooperation of the public to contact Perhilitan in the event of a human-wildlife conflict instead of taking matters into one's own hands.
Can we, the public, now invoke the same section to demand that the officers who had shot the langurs be prosecuted for cruelty to wildlife? Considering that even non-wildlife experts and local residents are able to tell that the langurs are not a threat to humans.
Can the Perhilitan officers really be said to have acted in good faith and actually believe that they were carrying out their official duties to protect wildlife and mitigate human-wildlife conflict? If that was true, then perhaps a retraining of all Perhilitan officers is in order.
Even in the case of problem wildlife such as long-tailed macaques, wildlife experts concur that culling may not be the best solution and should never be the first option. Culling could destroy biodiversity by harming unrelated species, for example, in the current case in which complaints were made about long-tailed macaques but it was ultimately the harmless and endangered langurs that were slain.
Culling could result in unintended ecological consequences, for example, as in the now-famous anecdote of how China had, in 1949, culled sparrows as a disease prevention measure, which resulted in the destruction of crops by locusts as there were insufficient sparrows to keep the locusts in check.
To reduce human-macaque conflict, developers need to build homes further away from wildlife habitats and forest fringes, create buffer zones, and install security fences and monkey-proof garbage bins. Perhilitan needs to monitor areas with reported human-wildlife conflicts and enforce their threats to fine and punish people who feed wildlife.
Without the wildlife feeders and easy availability of human-generated food waste, much of the conflict between humans and macaques could have been reduced.
The Perhilitan D-G, however, needs to investigate the killing of the langurs immediately and come up with new standard operating procedures to deal with human-wildlife conflict in order to restore public confidence in the agency.
The public will also need to play their part in learning to coexist with local fauna and reduce the risk of human-wildlife conflicts instead of reporting encounters with wildlife as problems to be dealt with and eliminated.
WONG EE LYNN
Petaling Jaya, Selangor
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times