Love doesn’t always translate to act of kindness, especially when it comes to animal conservation. When I was young, I’ve always thought that by keeping animals close to my side (read: caging them up) meant that I love them. After growing up, I realized nothing could be further from the truth. Animals should roam free in the wild, to love them you got to set them free.
This is my first Jungle book, made up of newspaper cuttings related to animals. I started doing this since I was 8.
When it was first captured, villagers gathered in my house and no one can tell what this shy cat-sized, bear-looking, tail-less animal is. We got to know the name one year later- Slowloris, I wish I had Google back then. It died few days after we decided to free it, after 2 years of selfish captivity and showering it with the wrong kind of love.
In those days, encounters with huge tortoise often ends up with the slower one eaten by the fast one. There’s always an exception, the tortoise above was released after a memorable photo session.
My first animal conservation lesson came from my parents. Some animals such as pangolin and porcupine are believed to bring bad luck. Other animals such as snakes and scorpions should be killed without any second thoughts as they pose poisonous threats.
River prawns and small crabs had to be sacrificed before kids understood the importance of protecting animals, no matter how insignificant they might be.
The snake above is taken in Malaysia’s National Park in Pahang. They are lot of foreigners in this national park, especially families. Their kids are taught to love and appreciate these animals.
This Common Palm Civet was captured accidentally. Thanks Andy for its name, Malaysia Carnivore Project. The trap was supposed to capture monkeys that invade into oil palm nurseries. I secretly released it and fortunately no questions was asked by my dad.
This oil palm plantation was originally part of the primitive jungle. It was situated along the route used by elephants when migrating from one spot to another in search of greener pastures. When wild elephants meet men, the conflict begins and the same old story begins. Elephants pay a heavy price for damaging the crops. Penalty includes electrical shock, and in some unfortunate cases, death itself.
Elephants are very intelligent creatures. They can always find ways to defuse an electrical fence and always has their way to tell the plantation owner that “they were here last night”.
This was a visit to The Sumatran Rhinoceros Conservation Park in Sungai Dusun, Selangor. The centre probably had a bad feng shui. The first accident involving a fallen tree killed one of the rhino. Then, another mysterious virus outbreak killed the rest of the herd.
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