Probe in SMC action

Forest Department confirms there was no application by council to trap and kill birds.

Borneo Post (7 February 2002) By Zora Chan

Kuching- Sibu Municipal Council has flown into a controversy capturing the swiflets and starlings without a permit from the Forest Department.

The Forest Department confirmed yesterday that it had not received any application for a permit for such action.
A department spokeman in a signed press statement said no licence had been issued to SMC to curb the population of these two bird species.

There was no application received, he said. He said the Forest Department had initiated an investigation into the matter as capturing these birds required legal sanction from the department.

All swiftlet species are protected under the Wildlife Protection Ordinance 1998.

"The killing and trapping of protected wildlife are banned unless they pose a threat to the people, and a permit has to be obtained from the Forest Department before they can be killed or controlled.

The Malaysian Nature Society Sarawak Branch had on Tuesday called on the SMC to "solve the illness, not the sysmptoms.
Its chairman, Anthony Sabastian was responding to the council's move to trap swiflets and starlings using mist nets, and later kill them.

The SMC claimed it wanted to control the population of these birds by catching them as Sibu folk could no longer bear with the birds' droppings.

The people, it said, find the birds a nuisance because their droppings dirtied newly white-washed building and vehicles in the town areas.

Sabastian said killing the birds in Sibu was like developing and everworsening rash on one's body, and resorting to applying anti-itch cream on the rashes for the rest of our life.

Protected animals of Sarawak in clued flying squirrels, all primates, all bats, porcupines, bear cats, Raja Brooke's Birdwing, pangolin, sun bear, otters, civets and mongooses, flying lemur/culugo, all scrubfowl, partridges and pheasants.

Also included in the list are waders, pythons, estuarine crocodile, false gharial, monitor lizard, burmese brown tortoise and softshelled turtles, cobras and hard and soft corals.

These animals are protected because they are becoming rare, due to hunting and habitat destruction.

A licence is needed to keep them as pets, or to hunt them, sell them, or keep any of their parts and trophies.

However, the issuing of such a licence depends on how rare the particular species are.

The penalties for hunting or possessing any of these animals dead or alive, and possessing any of their parts without a licence is a fine of RM10,000 and one year's jail.

Even though a person my apply for a licence to keep any these animals from the Forest Department office, in general, licences will not be issued to trade in any of these species.

Meanwhile, totally protected animals of Sarawak include the orang utan, proboscis monkey, maroon langur, bushy crested hornbill, helmeted hornbill, white crested hornbill, rhinoceros hornbill, black hornbill, pied hornbill, black hornbill, pied hornbill, wrinkled hornbill, wreathed hornbill, rhinoceros, bornean gibbon, naked bat and bulwer's pheasant.

All whales, dolphins and porpoises, dugong, all marine turtles, painted terrapin, earless minitor lizard bornean terrapin, earless monitor lizard, borneoan terrapin and niah cave gecko are also classified under to totally protected species.
These animals are totally protected because they are now extremely rare, due to hunting and habitat destruction.