Best of our wild blogs: 22 May 17

22-28 May: Week 3 of Pesta Ubin
Pesta Ubin 2017

Raptors In The Rain
Winging It

Clouded Monitor (Varanus nebulosus) @ Island Club Road
Monday Morgue

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Malaysia: Dams full but dry weather threatens

RAZAK AHMAD The Star 22 May 17;

PETALING JAYA: The Klang Valley’s eight dams are all nearly full thanks to the recent wet weather, but a severe dry spell in the coming months could drain them and cause water supply disruptions.

Data from the Selangor Water Management Authority website (iwrims.luas.gov.my) showed that the water level in Sungai Selangor dam, which supplies 70% of the treated water in the Klang Valley, was at 100% last Friday.

Two other dams – Semenyih and Langat – were also at 100% capacity, while four others were at more than 98%.

A dry spell typically happens in the Klang Valley from July to August due to a reduction in rainfall in the west coast of the peninsula, so the high water levels at the dams should ensure adequate supply of raw water in the months ahead.

However, Association of Water and Energy Research Malaysia president S. Piarapakaran said the high water levels are no cause for cheer.

He said unpredictable weather patterns due to climate change means there is a possibility that the coming dry spell could be more severe than expected.

“Two of the three treatment plants drawing water from Sungai Selangor are already overloaded by 10% and 20% respectively.

“A severe dry season could bring down the water levels at the dam much faster than expected,” he said, adding that this could raise the risk of supply disruption.

Pollution in rivers supplying water to treatment plants will also take longer to clean up when water levels at the rivers are low in the event of a severe dry spell.

“The authorities must be on guard and not be complacent due to the high water levels at our dams now.

“They must anticipate unforeseen circumstances to reduce possible risks,” said Piarapakaran.

To reduce the danger of lengthy disruptions to treatment plants due to pollution, he suggested that counter-measures be taken.

These include pre-treatment of raw water upstream before the water is drawn by the treatment plants.

This is done using several methods including placing mechanised devices that stir the water upstream to add oxygen to the water and reduce ammonia pollution.

The Langat 2 water treatment plant is being built to increase the raw water supply for Klang Valley but Piarapakaran said this is only expected to be ready at the end of 2019.

The unpredictable weather also poses a challenge to the Fire and Rescue Department, which is preparing for an outbreak of forest and peat fires during the dry season.

“There is no longer any clear or specific trend when it comes to the severity of the dry season,” said its director-general Datuk Wan Mohd Nor Ibrahim.

He said that in general, Peninsular Malaysia gets two dry spell episodes, the first from February to March followed by a second one which starts in June or July.

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Best of our wild blogs: 21 May 17

Larval Host Plant for Butterflies: Sea Almond
Butterflies of Singapore

Night Walk At Punggol Promenade Nature Walk (19 May 2017)
Beetles@SG BLOG

Singapore Raptor Report – February 2017
Singapore Bird Group

Expect delays at Changi bumboats during peak periods until 17 Sep 2017
wild shores of singapore

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A burning issue for Singapore: Indonesia readies for haze battle

Jakarta is desperate to prevent a repeat of the forest fires that caused US$16 billion of damage, kicked up more carbon dioxide than the United States, and upset neighbours including the Lion City, Malaysia and Thailand
JEFFREY HUTTON South China Morning Post 21 May 17;

Almost every year around this time – during the dry season – haze descends on Riau. And every year Jois Marfu’ah suffers.

Villages and some businesses across Riau, on the island of Sumatra, slash and burn shrub land to make way for crops. The flames belch out a toxic mess that is dangerous to breathe. Ear, nose and throat infections are common. Day becomes night as visibility drops to 50 metres or so, Jois says. Schools close. Trips to see relatives – already arduous on Indonesia’s woeful roads – become torture. And all this goes on for months.

“I want to cry,” says Marfu’ah, 30. “It’s so uncomfortable and scary.”

Two years after fires laid waste to 2 million hectares of land – causing US$16 billion in damage and fraying relations with neighbours Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, which were blanketed in haze – Indonesia is desperate to avoid a rerun.

President Joko Widodo has banned new plantations on fire-prone peat land and bullied police and the military to lift their game. Police chiefs face demotion if fires break out on their patch. A new agency has been created to restore burned-out swathes and Widodo has promised more resources to fight fires.

How effective these measures are is unclear. Last year the dry season that usually settles across much of the archipelago around this time of year, and lasts until October, failed to materialise. This year the weather forecasts for the dry season are split – maybe wet, maybe dry. In any case, the man in charge of fighting the fires once they break out says he’s not taking any chances.

“The fires gave Indonesia a bad reputation. We were caught by surprise,” says Willem Rampangilei, head of the National Agency for Disaster Management. “Last year we got some help from God because of the rain. This year we think it will be drier. We must be prepared.”

Widodo wants Chinese to keep coming – as investors, not workers

At the centre of the issue is peat. A mat of semi-decayed trees, grass and other plants built up since the last ice age, peat land makes up 12 per cent of Indonesia’s territory.

Remote and marginal, the land is cheap and attracts plantation companies growing millions of hectares of oil palm or acacia trees for pulp and paper. Draining and drying peat oxidises all that built-up carbon and makes it flammable. At their height, the fires in 2015 kicked up as much carbon dioxide as the whole of the United States during an average 24-hour period.

The government, through its newly minted Peatland Restoration Agency, has restored about 270,000 hectares. It’s promised an additional 150,000 hectares will be restored before the end of the year.

“The political will is there. The government was deeply embarrassed by the fires in 2015,” says Herry Purnomo, a researcher at the Centre for International Forestry Research in Bogor, 40km from Jakarta.

“The government is pulling in the same direction, and for the police their careers depend on preventing fires. This is significant.”

But discouraging people from using fire to clear land means going much deeper than the attitudes of bureaucrats in faraway Jakarta. The practice is baked into the mindsets of many who firmly believe not only that it is cheap but, falsely, that it is a source of fertiliser.

So some plantation companies are attempting to help villages that border their concessions to break their fire habit. Three years ago Singapore-based pulp and paper company Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Ltd (APRIL) offered 100 million rupiah
(HK$60,000) in prize money for villages that remained fire-free for a year. Winnings from the programme go towards infrastructure such as bridges or markets.

A year later the company spruced up the programme, offering advice on clearing land without fire and agriculture as well as the annual prize money. It appointed a local resident to keep a finger on the pulse of the village as a way of staying abreast of local needs and identifying potential firebugs.

The programme resulted in a dramatic fall in the amount of land consumed by fire. Throughout the nine villages, covering more than 400,000 hectares of land, that were participating in the programme in 2015, only 54 hectares were burned. The company has since expanded the programme to 27 villages.

One of the villages to win was Sering, population 3,000. Months of back and forth between company representatives and the village helped whittle the area lost to fire from 80 hectares in 2013 to just 0.5 hectares in 2015 and then finally to zero last year.

“There is a culture of burning the land,” Amirul Mukminim, a department head with the local government, says. “Most of the community had the perception that burning is legal and normal.”

But as the message filtered into the sermons during Friday prayers, attitudes started to change. “Sering is poor. It’s not easy to socialise people away from burning,” Mukminim says.

Not everyone is a fan of the approach. Greenpeace says that, though welcome, APRIL’s outreach to villages deflects attention from how it manages peat land within its concessions and those held by suppliers, which contribute about half of its raw material. “It’s not enough for the company to point to work in one area to reduce fires without demonstrating how it is reducing fire risks elsewhere, such as through raising water levels across the entirety of its operations on peat,” says Annisa Rahmawati, senior forest campaigner of Greenpeace Indonesia.

APRIL defended its approach: “Fire prevention is one aspect of a holistic landscape approach that aims to balance responsible production with forest conservation and protection. We are focused on a science-led approach to responsible peat land management.”

Other plantation companies have picked up the model, at least in part. Singapore-based palm oil company Musim Mas offers prizes of roughly US$2,500 to villages that remain fire-free. It says its efforts cover 72 villages comprising more than 500,000 hectares. The company wanted to move fast because it was concerned about burnishing its sustainability credentials and fending off legal probes as governments cracked down on plantation companies.

Indonesia’s haze crisis is Singapore’s haze crisis. During the worst of the burning season, prevailing winds from Sumatra coat the city state in fine particulate matter. The tiniest of these lodge in lungs and wreak havoc. Last year the index measuring these pollutants, PM2.5, went above 470 – out of a maximum of 500.

“This is such a powerful issue here,” says Musim Mas spokeswoman Carolyn Lim, who is based in Singapore. “You look out your window and you can’t see anything.”

Singapore has threatened to haul plantation companies – many of which are listed there – to court to answer for the haze. The government has demanded that six Indonesian suppliers linked to Asian Pulp and Paper Group explain their sustainability practices to its National Environment Agency.

In March last year Malaysian palm oil giant IOI Group was stripped of its sustainability certificates by the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil. The loss meant multinational companies dumped it as a supplier.

“This programme does wonders for your sustainability. We didn’t use to do any fire management outside of our concession. We realised that this whole situation is becoming criminalised,” Lim explains.

“Whether you like it or not you’re responsible for what happens in these villages.” ■

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Amid high-tech push, longtime Lim Chu Kang farmers keep faith with tradition

WONG PEI TING Today Online 20 May 17;

SINGAPORE — As the longtime farmers in Lim Chu Kang come face-to-face with the Government’s push for them to adopt new technologies, they swear by the simple technologies that they have devised and used over the past 20 years, saying that these work.

No need for conveyor belts or state-of-the-art tools, for what they have on their side is the strength of their know-how, personal care and knowledge of their farm animals and produce, and the results to show for it.

A quail farmer, a vegetable farmer, and a frog farmer tell TODAY about the values of prudence and minimalism that they uphold.

LIAN WAH HANG QUAIL FARM

Step into 63-year-old farm Lian Wah Hang, and you will feel like you are visiting a science park of sorts that is filled with disarming inventions.

There are cages with 15-degree sloped bases, so that freshly laid quail eggs can roll out gently onto a collection tray.

Incubators are made using household items such as light bulbs and black plastic sheets that cost no more than S$200 each.

And there is that atmospheric-pressure-based water feeder, made of pipes with holes, that will dispense water onto a holder when pecked by bird chicks.

These simple tips and tricks are all the technology that 94-year-old Ho Seng Choon and his sons adopted.

The farm, mind you, was once at the frontier of modern farming techniques in the 1960s. It was one of the pioneers to introduce machine incubators, automatic egg graders that check for spots and cracks and sort eggs according to their size, and feather-plucking machines.

Despite having helped other farms including pig farms in Punggol and Kalimantan, Indonesia, move into automation in the past, it kept its own processes fuss-free today because “hi-tech doesn’t always equals results”, Mr Ho’s son William, 51, said.



For example, an automatic quail egg grader and packer could cut the job of four workers, but its S$500,000 price tag is not justified to help the farm sort and pack 30,000 eggs a day. Right now, six workers can do this in an hour in the evenings.

Another idea that sounds good on paper is to fix conveyor belts so that more labour-intensive processes such as feeding, egg collection and manure collection can be sped up, Mr Ho said. However, while it may reduce one’s physical exertion, it increases mental stress instead when they have to balance the accounts, such as having to match the investment with increased productivity when the demand remains largely stagnant.

Mr Ho, who had chosen farming over a career as an engineer with the Republic of Singapore Air Force, said such mental strain is uncalled for, and that farming is supposed to be all country and soul, with “no pressure”, yet “very fulfilling”.

“It’s very rewarding because you tend the earth, the animals give you back the returns.”

This is a day in his life: In the morning, his employees will feed the quails and clean up the coops so that their birds — numbering 150,000 at present — can “feel more at home”.

Then he will send about 10,000 quails to the slaughterhouse or transport the birds’ manure to other farms to be used as fertilisers.
After lunch, they will put new eggs into an incubator or take chicks into a brooder, which is a toasty-warm coop to nurture them into toddlerhood.

After tea time, they will feed the animals again and collect the eggs. This last part still thrills Mr Ho.

“Every egg you collect is like every cent that you put in your pockets… You feed the quails in the morning, and collect the returns by evening. The feeling is indescribable. That’s why I love being a farmer,” he said.

All these have served the business well, but the signs that things have to change are appearing.

The farm has been making S$90,000 in monthly revenue from 1997 to 2016, until Malaysian imports started to flood the market this year and they are only getting a third of what they used to earn.

Then, by 2019, it would have to move out of its 2.7ha premises to a proposed 1.5ha space, the vacated site of Aero Green Technology at Neo Tiew Crescent.



Mr Ho shook his head as he foresees that he would need an estimated S$3.5 million to build his facility from scratch there. “The investment, overheads and material costs will be sky-high... I asked for the ministry to come up with a special arrangement or package to help us in financing the structural build-up, but unfortunately, there is no mechanism yet.”

He finds that the same money could be used to upgrade Lian Wah Hang’s existing space, which has not been open to public since 2004, to kickstart its recreational and educational arm, such as having a visitor’s centre, museum and event hall, among others. For now, the Tourism Board certified nature guide is currently conducting farm tours from Farmart Centre at Sungei Tengah near Choa Chu Kang.
Moving would mean “needing to start all over again (and) that we need to slowly build our flocks up”, he said.

FARM 85 AND YILI VEGETATION

Fluctuating weather in Singapore is a daily battle for local vegetable farms Farm 85 and Yili Vegetation. Too hot, and crops like cai xin and xiao bai cai might not get receive enough water. Too wet, and soil nutrients and fertilisers get washed away.

But the farms, neighbours at Lim Chu Kang Lane 1, have found a way to overcome the problem, through adapting a greenhouse setup they came across four years ago during a study trip to a Shandong farm in eastern China.

They used black netting as the heat-trapping material, in place of a white plastic cover, so less heat penetrates when the sun is overhead. To allow more air to flow through the greenhouse, they extended the width of the roof from 1m to 2.5m.

Just like that, the two farms, which have been around for about 20 years, manage to churn out about 15 harvests each annually. That’s seven tonnes of leafy greens daily, or about one-quarter the Republic’s vegetable produce.

Everything else at their setups is by the sweat of brow. Seeds, germinated in a nursery for up to 12 days first, are transplanted by hand. Four to five workers are needed for each hectare of land – Farm 85 is close to 14ha, Yili is 4ha.

After 20 to 24 days — depending, again, on the weather — the produce is harvested by hand and manually packed.

Although they are keen to continue upgrading their systems, Farm 85 director Tan Koon Hua, 49, and Yili owner Alan Toh, 53, said it is not just a matter of buying machines.

Mr Tan said, in Mandarin: “(Relying on a machine to keep temperatures in a greenhouse constant) might work in countries with four seasons, but it is not suitable in Asia. Singapore’s temperature fluctuates a lot, so the system needs to keep adjusting to keep the conditions the same, so the machine spoils easily, incurring higher maintenance costs, while its intended impact is not there.”

What could work, though, are sensors that alert them to toggle settings to regulate temperatures remotely, they said. Even if they are overseas, a few taps on a tablet or smartphone is all that is needed to ensure crops are tended to optimally.

But such sensors cost S$15,000 each. And for every hectare, eight such sensors are needed.

With the land they are currently sitting on up for redevelopment by the end of 2021, the idea has to be put on the backburner.

For now, a bigger concern looms: Is the land parcel they are relocating to reclaimed land?

Half of Yili sits on reclaimed land, and it took Mr Toh more than five years to adjust the soil conditions using compost. And even then, the results are sub-optimal, 20 years on.

Mr Toh said water still does not drain as well as it does on natural soil, and the yield is as much as 30 per cent lower, as well as of poorer quality.

“(Produce) from reclaimed land are ‘old-looking’ – they take two to three days more to ripen, so the quality changes,” he said. “But on natural soil, my spinach heads are white and translucent, they sparkle.”

JURONG FROG FARM

Thirty-six years ago, Ms Chelsea Wan’s father started Jurong Frog Farm, even though the various limitations here — they depend on Mother Nature for enough rain for their frogs to grow properly because rules forbid them from using water from the tap for the frogs, for instance — put the number of frogs they can rear from scratch out of their hands.

Since then, their singular focus has been to make every frog they have count — beyond the frog legs they sell for dishes, such as porridge.

In 1999, they had their first breakthrough: Producing hashima locally. The collagen-rich delicacy was previously thought of as only attainable from frogs living in mountains in the northern regions of China. But Ms Wan’s father, after two years of experimentation, found a way to convert the fatty tissue found near a frog’s fallopian tube into hashima.

He used different methods and temperatures to dry the tissue, but the taste and texture was not up to mark. So he employed various ways to cutting the tissue, finally finding a streamlined process to mass-produce it for the market.

Today, the hashima they produce earns enough to “cover one to two head counts” but is a source of pride.

They did not stop there.

Later, Ms Wan found that frog innards can be sold to pet shops and clinics as an alternative diet for dogs with skin problems.
Frog skin? Why not deep fry it and serve it as a snack, similar to what is done for fish skin?

Recently, they started working on a new idea. Tapping researchers from the Nanyang Technological University — who took up residence at the farm — they are toying with processes to harvest bioactive collagen peptides from frog skin for use in cosmetic products.

All these efforts, said Ms Wan, have yielded extra income, so much so that half of what they used to discard now brings in revenue.
This enterprising spirit, to the 34-year-old who became a frog farmer right after graduating with a Sociology degree from National University of Singapore, is what it means to be true farmers: They make do, innovate, and grow within their means.

After all, farming is “not rocket science”, she quipped. The conditions are “so simple, so basic”, and “you don’t need to employ a six-figure system to run the operations, and then incur much more in percentage of utility costs”, she added.

“There are things like automatic food dispensers, but farmers should be the ones feeding because you need to monitor the rate of (your animals’) growth. You need to pick up the diseased animals early enough. You just need to feed them – how long will it take?”

In fact, getting your hands dirty is, to Ms Wan, as much a vital part of a farming existence as the simple pleasures she enjoyed growing up in her family’s farm.

Last December, she moved into a flat in Bukit Panjang and is still trying to adjust to the changes — traffic is too noisy, there is no fresh air, nor unobstructed views of the sky.

“Right now work is still quite menial. Nothing is really mechanised ... We rely on the elements, but funny thing is the farm is still around 35 years later,” she said.

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Best of our wild blogs: 20 May 17

Expect delays at Changi bumboats during peak periods until 17 Sep 2017
wild shores of singapore

Intertidal Outing @ Nicoll Drive
Bugs & Insects of Singapore

Festival of Biodiversity Speaker Series – May 27 & 28
biodiversityconnections

Toddycats’ prepare for Festival of Biodiversity 2017 – this time, a forest walk at the MacRitchie forest!
Toddycats!

Nature Conservation Talk & Film Screening by Cicada Tree Eco-Place
Love our MacRitchie Forest

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Fish vaccines keep antibiotic risk at bay

It is more effective than antibiotics and benefits consumers' health too, but costs are higher for farms
Audrey Tan Straits Times 20 May 17;

Just as infants are vaccinated against certain diseases, young fish at three farms here are also getting the same treatment.

They are injected with vaccines instead of being fed with antibiotics, the usual practice currently.

This keeps the fish - and the humans who eat them - healthy. This is because vaccines reduce the risk of people developing a resistance to antibiotics.

When farmed animals, such as fish, are fed with antibiotics, there is the possibility of residual drugs passing through the food chain and ending up in the bellies of humans, said Emeritus Professor Hew Choy Leong from the National University of Singapore's (NUS) department of biological sciences.

"Many of these antibiotics are used to treat human diseases. If antibiotics are consumed excessively, the bacteria can develop a resistance to medicine that was previously able to kill them," he said.

Only three of some 120 fish farms here have started vaccinating their fish, but experts hope more will follow. Fish farm Marine Life Aquaculture, for example, started a pilot to swop antibiotics for vaccines about four years ago.

Its managing director Frank Tan said the pilot has been successful - 90 per cent of vaccinated fish survived, compared with 20 per cent of those fed with antibiotics.

The farm will scale this up from next month to all its fingerlings, or young fish about 10cm long.

"When we vaccinate the fish, there is herd immunity which prevents disease from spreading fast - important for farmed fish in close proximity to one another. Antibiotics are mainly used after a bacterial infection hits, and it may be too late," said Mr Tan.

Vaccines cost twice as much as antibiotics, and administering them is labour-intensive - workers have to manually vaccinate the fish one by one - but Mr Tan said the high survival rate was worth it.

The Straits Times reported last December that the Health Ministry was working with the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA), the National Environment Agency and NUS on a nationwide strategy to tackle the problem of some bacteria becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics.

"Due to increasing worldwide concerns over the development of antimicrobial resistance, AVA has been stepping up efforts to advise and educate our farmers on proper fish health management to prevent infections without using antibiotics, and (on) prudent drug usage to treat disease when needed," an AVA spokesman told The Straits Times.

Farmers must follow certain procedures which, among other things, will prevent residual antimicrobials from exceeding certain levels, she said.

Whether more farms would start vaccinating their fish depends on factors such as cost, said Dr Grace Loo, a lecturer in marine science and aquaculture at Republic Polytechnic's School of Applied Science.

Dr Dirk Eichelberger, from fish farm Singapore Aquaculture Technologies, believes vaccines are key as they improve survival rates.

"However, there is a shortage of suitable vaccines in Singapore, and those that are available require a very high minimum order quantity," he said, adding that he uses antibiotics only in the rare event of disease outbreaks.

AVA said farms can tap its Agriculture and Productivity Fund to buy equipment, such as those required for fish vaccination, that boosts productivity.

Service executive Julie Ng, 60, said she is keen to buy vaccinated fish. "It sounds like the healthier choice, and why not, if the fish are cheaper too."

But teacher Ho Heng Mei, 56, said fresh fish are not sold with nutrition labels, making it hard for consumers to differentiate between vaccinated fish and fish fed with antibiotics. "There is no way to know the treatment process given. So as long as there is no health warning, I will continue to enjoy eating fish."

Why vaccines work better than antibiotics

Give a man a fish and he feeds for a day. Teach a man to fish and he feeds for a lifetime. That is essentially what antibiotics and vaccines do respectively.

Antibiotics are chemical compounds designed to kill bacteria - they treat a disease when it happens. Vaccines, on the other hand, are preventive. They contain biological compounds that bolster the body's own immune system to protect it against specific pathogens.

Mr Lee Yeng Sheng, a senior specialist for global marketing in aquaculture at MSD Animal Health, which developed the vaccines used by local fish farm Marine Life Aquaculture, said fish vaccines work like human vaccines. "Once administered, the fish will mount a natural immune response and be protected from infection by the disease, allowing for the use of medicines such as antibiotics when only absolutely necessary," he said.

This means that the next time a fish encounters an infection caused by bacteria or viruses it has been vaccinated against, its immune system will be ready to fight it. But if it had been given antibiotics instead, a new dose would be required every time there is an outbreak.

This could encourage and breed resistance in the bacteria, said Dr Leong Hoe Nam, an infectious diseases specialist at Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital.

When fish are given antibiotics, the chemicals are usually mixed in its food.

"When the antibiotics go directly into the sea, or are excreted by the fish into the sea, it provides sub-therapeutic levels of the drug - which means the dosage is lower than that required to kill the pathogen," said Dr Leong. This makes it easy for the bacteria to mutate against the drug - an effect that vaccines do not have on the pathogen.

"In other words, give the fish antibiotics, you rid the bacteria for one day. Give the fish a vaccine, you teach the fish to fight the bacteria every day," he said.

Audrey Tan

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Gallop Stable guilty of animal cruelty, fined S$9,000

Vanessa Paige Chelvan Channel NewsAsia 19 May 17;

SINGAPORE: Horse-riding provider Gallop Stable was fined S$9,000 on Friday (May 19), following a conviction for animal cruelty last month.

A retired racehorse named Sharpy was found in poor condition at the stable's premises in Pasir Ris in May 2013 by Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) vet Dr Wendy Toh when she visited the ranch unannounced.

Dr Toh spotted the 17-year-old mare lying on the ground, breathing heavily and baring its teeth – signs the horse was in pain.

Gallop Stable was subsequently charged for animal cruelty, for “failing to provide (the horse) adequate veterinary attention”.

The stable’s director said he knew Sharpy was ill and had given the horse painkillers. He had also called a vet before being asked to do so by the AVA after its surprise visit, he testified last year.

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But the vet, Dr Phyllis Yew, said stable hands had not followed her instructions on cleaning Sharpy’s festering wounds, leading to them becoming infested with maggots. Sharpy had become so sickly that both Dr Yew and Dr Toh recommended the horse be euthanised.

The stable refused.

STABLE SPENT $16,000 ON SHARPY'S CARE

“(The Stable) could have taken the easy, cost-effective route of having Sharpy put down, in accordance with the vets’ advice”, defence lawyer Simon Tan said. “No one would or could have faulted them.”

But the stable “genuinely believed” Sharpy could be saved, Mr Tan said. They spent almost S$16,000 on Sharpy’s medical bills, going so far as to rent special equipment needed for its care.

Sharpy is alive and well today, Mr Tan said, referring the court to videos of the mare “well and recovered (and) galloping in the stable”.

Gallop Stable manages close to 200 horses and ponies across three stables, many of which are retired racehorses like Sharpy, which would have been put down if they had not been adopted by the stable. “My client has given these retired horses a new lease of life”, Mr Tan said.

Far from being cruel, the stable works with several non-profit organisations to provide horse-therapy programs for cancer patients, the disabled and disadvantaged for rehabilitative, educational and therapeutic purposes, Mr Tan said.

He added the stable has since taken measures to prevent “any future incidents of this nature”, including more regular medical checkups. Stable hands have also been told to report and record any injuries or illness, “no matter how small”, and to uphold “requisite standards of care” for the horses.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Gabriel Choong, however, argued a S$10,000 fine should be imposed. Sharpy had suffered for five months before its condition improved, and the horse’s leg is permanently swollen and has left the horse “mildly lame”, the prosecutor said.

Mr Tan, who had asked for a fine of S$5,000, said Gallop Stable will lodge an appeal against the conviction and fine.

'UNNECESSARY PAIN AND SUFFERING'

AVA said in a media statement on Friday night that the mare had experienced unnecessary pain and suffering which could have been mitigated with timely veterinary treatment.

Sharpy had a severely infected lower right hind leg and infected eyes, as well as a swollen left knee which was later diagnosed to be a case of severe hematoma - bleeding with a retained blood clot.

The authority's investigations found that the owner had been self-treating the mare and did not provide it with proper veterinary attention.

AVA instructed Gallop to seek veterinary attention for the horse immediately, and the two independent vets who examined Sharpy later also assessed that it had been subjected to unnecessary suffering.

"AVA condemns animal cruelty and will investigate all feedback on animal cruelty. We will take enforcement action against anyone who has committed an act of cruelty," it said in the statement.
Source: CNA/vc

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Malaysia: Man nabbed with 3,000 turtle eggs off Sandakan

STEPHANIE LEE The Star 19 May 17;

KOTA KINABALU: A man believed to be a smuggler was caught in the waters off Sandakan with 3,000 turtle eggs early Friday.

State marine police chief Asst Comm Mohd Yazib Abd Aziz said the suspect, a 40-year-old Filipino, was on a pump boat heading towards Kg Forest when marine police officers saw him.

"The officers at first saw an object in the water. As they approached it, they saw that it was a pump boat," he said.

Police gave chase when the suspect tried to flee in the 3.30am incident.

"Our men intercepted the pump boat and detained the suspect, who did not have any documents with him," ACP Yazib said.

Police also found 10 plastic bags containing 3,000 turtle eggs, believed smuggled from the Philippines for the local market here.

The eggs are worth about RM4,800.

Investigations are continuing under the Wildlife Rehabilitation Enactment 1997.

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Malaysians discard 17,800 tonnes of food daily; activists push for zero-wastage

Beatrice Nita Jay New Straits Times 20 May 17;

KUALA LUMPUR: The government must promote a zero-food wastage culture among Malaysians to help curb the growing problem of food wastage in the country.

Social activist Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye said the move must be undertaken, as research by Solid Wastage Corporation Management (SWCorp) has shown that Malaysians discard 17,800 tonnes of food every day.

He said for the zero-food wastage initiative to succeed, all levels of the community must be roped in, as everyone has a responsibility to put a stop to all forms of wastage.

“If the education and awareness programme fails to change the negative behaviour of the public, the authorities may have to introduce new legislation that will ensure that those who waste food are fined or receive other kinds of punishment,” he said in a statement today.

Lee was commenting on a proposal made by the High-Level Committee on Urban Poverty to implement a food aid programme for the urban poor via the National Blue Ocean Strategy.

But after chairing the committee meeting on Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the programme would inconvenience various ministries and hypermarket operators.

Lee said food wastage is rampant in Malaysia, as our people could be seen helping themselves to more food than they could consume, especially when at buffet spreads at hotels, restaurants and open houses.

He said this is especially so during the month of Ramadan, when Malaysians would pile their plates with huge portions of food and not be able to finish it.

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Malaysia: Rescued – only to die of poor care

VINCENT TAN and EDDIE CHUA The Star 20 May 17;

EXCLUSIVE: PETALING JAYA: Thousands of protected animals seized by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) have died in the hands of the authority in the past year due to mishandling.

These animals, many of which are endangered species and exotic, were being smuggled or kept illegally by local pet owners when they were seized.

A source said the lack of expertise and knowledge to handle these animals in captivity led to their death.

Among the animals that died in Perhilitan custody were 1,000 Indian Star tortoises and 10 juvenile and baby langurs.

These two species were seized from illegal dealers in mid-2016 and March 27 respectively.

Other animals that have died in the Perhilitan rescue centres include Asian Leopard Cats, small primates including endangered gibbons, and exotic white-rumped Shamas (murai batu).

The source said these animals were among many other seized species kept at the department’s National Wildlife Rescue Centre in Sungkai, Perak, and at Sungai Tengi, Selangor.

These two husbandries are Perhilitan’s main holding centres for seized animals.

The department has 11 other conservation centres nationwide which serve as holding centres for seized wildlife.

The source said many of the handlers have little or no knowledge in keeping, handling and caring for the animals.

“They are not well trained to handle these species and have little knowledge or technical expertise to take care of the animals, which are kept at the centres waiting to be repatriated to their country of origin.

“As such, these animals were neglected. They were not properly fed, given the right diet, or housed in proper facilities.

“These factors,” said the source, “caused the animals to be stressed from captivity, thus making them prone to disease and death.”

A former Perhilitan veterinarian said there was a need for rangers to be trained to handle these animals.

“Many do not know what are the best practices for the animals they are dealing with.

“They don’t have the basic knowledge such as the characteristics or even diet of these species to care for them.

“As such, the animals get sick, are stressed and die,” he said.

He said Perhilitan had its own veterinarians to deal with the seized animals but all these officers were seconded from the Veterinary Department.

“Many of us are trained in handling domestic animals and learn to deal with exotic animals and wildlife after joining Perhilitan,” he added.

Traffic, a wildlife trade monitoring network, says Malaysia is one of many South-East Asian countries that does not have expertise to handle seized smuggled animals in captivity.

Its South-East Asia director Chris Shepherd said Traffic was aware of Perhilitan’s problem but added that this could be averted or minimised if the department takes steps to have a working group comprising members from Perhilitan, the Customs Department, and academicians.

He said it was a challenge for the department to care for the seized animals as it had to deal with many different species.

“However, if they pool their resources together, it would reduce the mortality rate,” he said.

Shepherd said that allowing a private rescue agency to deal with these exotic and imported species would also boost the survival rate of the seized animals.


‘A third of seized animals suffered injury or disease’
The Star 20 May 17;

PETALING JAYA: Nearly 30% – or one out of three – of the protected animals seized by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) died under its care.

A Perhilitan spokesman said that an average of between 25% and 30% of the seized animals died as these animals had suffered injury or contracted diseases while being moved from place to place.

“Some species are sensitive and get stressed very easily when travelling in unsuitable containers.

“Others already suffered internal injuries and illness before they were seized and had little chance of survival,” the spokesman said in an email reply to The Star.

It said that between September 2016 and January, the department conducted 837 enforcement raids.

Besides seizing wildlife smuggled into the country, Perhilitan enforcement also involved technical issues related to late licence renewal. Of the number of cases, 42 involved court action.

While the department did not address the fate of the 1,000 seized Indian Star tortoises, the spokesman said the reptiles were not repatriated as the Indian authorities had rejected the department’s offer to send them back home.

It said all seized animals were dealt with and handled according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature guidelines.

The local species seized from the traders have been treated and rehabilitated. They will be released back into the wild.


WWF: Set up animal welfare centre
The Star 20 May 17;

PETALING JAYA: An independently-run wildlife rescue and welfare centre should be established to help the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) to care for seized animals in this country.

WWF-Malaysia chief executive officer Datuk Dr Dionysius Sharma (pic) said the setting up of such a centre would reduce the mortality rate of the seized animals.

“The department handles different seized wildlife at different times. It has limited facilities and manpower to care for and handle the animals under its custody.

“A rescue centre can be the ideal solution,” he said.

Sharma said that, technically, some of these seized animals should be sent to zoos to be looked after.

He said the Malacca Zoo used to be under Perhilitan’s jurisdiction but after it was privatised, it was difficult for the facility or any other zoo in the country to take in and care for seized animals.

Sharma said an independently-run wildlife centre would allow the seized wildlife to be professionally looked after.

“It would also be responsible for rehabilitating some of the local seized animals to be released back into the wild,” he said.

Currently, he said, there was no such centre but if funds were available, it could be established with the help of non-governmental organisations involved in wildlife conservation.


Doc: Caring for seized wildlife not too difficult
VINCENT TAN The Star 21 May 17;

PETALING JAYA: Taking care of seized wildlife may be challenging, but it certainly is not very difficult, says a former Zoo Negara official.

Former Zoo Negara assistant director Datuk Dr S. Vellayan said given the correct living conditions and nutrition, these animals could survive.

He said many of those handling the seized animals in Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) have no proper training on wildlife husbandry, hence leading to complications in keeping the rescued animals alive.

He said many of the officers assigned to look after the animals would employ a trial and error method instead.

Dr Vellayan, currently an associate professor at the Puncak Alam campus of Universiti Teknologi Mara, said taking care of wildlife, whether in zoos or a conservation facility requires people with zoological knowledge and experience to understand wildlife physiology and nutritional needs.

“The department also needs funds to send their rangers and veterinarians, who are seconded from the Veterinary Department, to go on specialised courses on wildlife management,” he said.

Currently, many of Perhilitan’s officers, rangers and veterinarians managing the wildlife rescued and welfare centres lack formal training in wildlife husbandry and medicine. Many of them learned their skills on the job, he said.

“Perhilitan needs to draw up better standard operating procedures, including record-keeping as it is important to note observations like food intake and changes to the animals’ condition,” he said.

Dr Vellayan said the lack of knowledge of animals’ diet could also lead to their death.

The Star yesterday reported that thousands of protected animals seized by Perhilitan have died in the hands of the authority in the past year due to mishandling.

These animals, many of which are endangered species and exotic, were being smuggled or kept illegally by local pet owners when they were seized.

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Indonesia: Forest fires hit Sumatra again, causing smog

The Jakarta Post 19 May 17;

The Indonesian climate agency detected 18 hot spots on Friday, indicating forests and lands were burning in regions on Sumatra Island, as happens each year, resulting in pollution and upsetting neighboring countries.

The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) said that fires had been found in Jambi, South Sumatra, Riau and Riau Islands, which are in the dry season.

“The hot spots have been recorded over the past week,” said Slamet Riyadi, head of the data and information division of the BMKG’s Pekanbaru branch in Riau.

There were seven hot spots in Jambi while four fires were burning in some areas of the Riau and South Sumatra provinces, according to the Terra and Aqua satellites.

Forest and land fires are perennial problems in the country, with the latest massive fires in 2015 resulting in a choking haze blanketing numerous areas in Sumatra and Kalimantan, as well as neighboring countries, and costing the economy Rp 221 trillion, equal to about 1.9 percent of the country’s GDP. (mos/dan)

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