Update: Please, no tigers on the island! That’s the plea of an experienced vet in Penang whom I spoke to. “Penang as an island is not the place for wild animals especially tigers. The whole concept of having animals is not like those days when they were caged. Now they are left to roam in the loose and they have their own environment, but never in captivity. Even the concept of zoos has changed to the open system. You can’t have a tiger roaming wild on the island (without a supporting ecological balance). In a normal safari, the animals have their own eco-system where the bigger animals (roam around and) survive by eating smaller animals.”
Looks like the proposal for a Tiger Park in Penang is receiving a mauling.
And not just from local wildlife conservation groups such as the Malaysian Conservation Alliance for Tigers (Mycat!), which comprises the Malaysian Nature Society, Traffic Southeast Asia, Wildlife Conservation Society-Malaysia Programme and World Wildlife Fund-Malaysia.
News of the Tiger Park plan has even reached the global media for all the wrong reasons. Check out the BBC report here.
If the Penang government is really interested in eco-tourism, then it should clean up the beaches and rivers and protect the hillslopes from greedy property developers. Identify the sources of river and sea pollution and penalise the culprits. Create a more liveable city too by reducing the dependence on private motor vehicles and promoting public transport. (Do not approve the Penang Outer Ring Road.) And oh yes, create more parks – people’s parks, that is, not artificial tiger parks. Pulau Jerejak could also be turned into a nature sanctuary.
Who would want to come and pay big money to gawk at tigers during a recession (or depression)? Zoos do not excite children these days as they seem obsessed with computer games and playstations and what-have-you.
Now we know the Council does have 100 acres it could use for a People’s Park. A well-maintained People’s Park would would make Penang stand out and in the long run draw more visitors than an artificial Tiger Park.
If the tigers are not properly looked after, the park could have the opposite effect and put people off Penang. I recall how a global signature campaign was recently carried out in the West after a tourist captured on video a couple of monkeys kept in a small cage in a private park in an island resort in peninsular Malaysia.
When I received the news via an email petition, I immediately alerted the park owners and told them about the video and the petition and told them to do something about it. They told me they were taking immediate action – and I believe they did act on it. But by then the bad publicity had already spread via the Internet through the outraged remarks on the online signature petition and the emails circulating around.
This is the sort of the thing that could happen in this age of Youtube and online petitions if nature lovers see wildlife being poorly treated.
Which would you prefer in Penang?
- A People's Park (74%, 1,325 Votes)
- A Tiger Park (21%, 369 Votes)
- Don't know (5%, 96 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,790
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Read the whole article on China Tiger Farms Lobby to Sell Animal Parts to Aid Conservation
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061222-tiger-farms.html
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A tiger park ? Silly idea.
For eco-tourism projects, it may be better to plant rubber trees, oil palm, coconut, durian trees etc etc and have presentations on how the products are harvested, their uses etc etc – little mini factories.
After all, how many school kids in Penang (let alone the foreign tourists) even know what a rubber seed looks like ?
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Tiger park in Penang? Pathetic lah. DAP can kidd Penang goodbye if it keeps coming up with such stupid ideas.
Has anyone been to the … butterfly park lately. U will not be impressed. DAP must learn from BN’s mistakes and don’t b like them.
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I think the best thign the Pg state govt should do is give Pg a thorough cleansing politically and environmentally. I suggest LGE give special attention to a cleaner Pg beaches. I still recall LGE advising the People of Pg to work with the govt to clean up the beaches on Red.FM ….”….Our beaches are not what it use to be…use to be”. Penang all along is famous for its sandy beaches and local hawkers fare. This 2 alone (together with her other tourist spots) will be able to attract tourist to visit pg in droves. Tiger Park can come later when Pg is really squeky clean.
I also remember when I was young…I use to go tho the beach almost everyday…fishing, digging siput, swimming in the sea and in the process getting very tanned (my friend use to call me a malay because my skin is dark brown from the sun tan). My cousins from Ipoh used to visit my parents and they love to go to the beach.
I think this should be the no 1 priority.
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Good idea. We can feed the criminals and politicians to the tigers
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What a dumb idea. Penang doesn’t need novelties like a tiger park, which would end up a loss-maker. After the usual initial visitor response, usually out of curiosity, interest dies and the park would become another white elephant.
Why not tropical orchards, which could be self-sustaining? Why not promote harbour and Penang Bridge cruises, or trips to outlying islands like Jerejak? The money for tiger park is better spent at cleaning up Penang’s dirty-city image, relocating illegal hawkers to proper spots and improving public transport to tourist spots.
Penang should stop thinking short-term benefits and go long on substance and sustainability. I am a regular visit to Penang. I see many buildings and developments poorly maintained, chaotic traffic and congestions, illegal hawkers hogging sidewalks and five-foot ways. That don’t leave much room for the heritage-loving pedestrian tourist to walk around.
Mindset and political will must change if Penang wants to regain its reputation.
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This government doesn’t have a strategic plan.. so it comes up with a lot of half-baked plans, just to show that they have new ideas…ok, nothing wrong with that, but at least do some proper research, read the tons of studies and reports done previously. The reports were prepared by experts in their field, not by politicians, so it’s not a shame to relook into them. The tourism industry people are complaining that they are not consulted on the state’s tourism strategies, so if people in the industry who are knowledgeable on tourism trends are not consulted then who in this state government can claim to be such a policy expert?
Politicians claim to have the peoples’ interest at heart, and they are disdainful of experts’ and NGO’s views because they are not the ones who elected them. That is being foolish and plain arrogant.
The problem with the beaches is the cutting of hills and soil erosion washed to the sea… littering can be easily solved by but not the siltation. Anyway, i believe few Penangites really go to the beaches, mostly visitors, so don’t blame Penangites for the rubbish which are washed ashore from the sea.
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Sunny, even Vet also say not good to have Tiger Park lah. You got what qualification to speak in authority?
What do Vet know about running a state? I have zero authority so you don’t see me making baseless statements. Let those elected do their job and if you feel so strongly about how Penang should be run, go for office.
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A tiger park might seem inoffensive in the abstract, but let us consider it concretely as proposed thus far. If the map provided by The Star report is correct then the area designated for the park appears to be right in a residential zone and adjacent to farming plots on the hill. It is also bordered by roads. Check for yourselves on Google Maps.
The size is allegedly 40 ha, about the size of KL Zoo. It does not seem credible that this will be anything approximating their natural habitat. Once facilities are erected there will likely be very little room for roaming. Security will be a great concern, both against poachers and to protect nearby residents. Should a tiger maul anyone it runs the risk of having to be put down, thus contributing against repopulation efforts.
Such a facility would be very very costly. All top-of-the-line animal entertainment centres must be very expensive affairs lest they become sad prisons for deprived animals.
As Muaz Omar on M’sian Insider has pointed out, the CM’s take on “eco-tourism” seems to be more like conventional tourism around plants, landscape, or animals rather than ecologically robust minimal impact access to sites of natural beauty.
Guan Eng’s cavalier justification of the park to provide a “wow factor” for Penang leaves me worried as to whether he really thinks through proposals before airing them in public. Its uncomfortably like the flip-flop pattern we’ve seen with BN (IJM, tolls, etc.).
A focus on strengthening the fundamentals of Penang (economy, beaches, Georgetown) rather than tacking on flashy projects might better serve the island. After one year in power more comprehensive policies to improve welfare, opportunity, quality of life, and governance would be welcome deliverables to see from a PR government.
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There is a need for Wildlife conservation in Malaysia.
People that grew up in concrete jungle, computer games and electronic age will not know any better and will have the tendency to destroy the environment and/or consume Wildlife in the name of health, progress and what not.
All over the world, many animals & plants species are disappearing. They cannot get out of the way of human “progress” and will be beaten to extinction unless we actively protect them and their habitats. A Tiger & Wildlife Conservation Park would be the educational tool that would help bring much needed awareness and appreciation to the Bolehland metality.
At least LGE highlight this Park for the Rakyat to discuss and we can see it creates more awareness as to the creature’s habitat is like and their behaviour.
Currently, without proper funding and support from major government agencies it is not do able.
Hopefully this situation will change & we get a chance to set one right, and educate our children on animal & plant conservation.
BTW A vet may not be an expert in animal conservation. Nature of their work is generally, to care for the health of pets, livestock, and animals in zoos, racetracks, and laboratories.
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biggest problem is LGE not originaly penangite so mcmana dia nk paham negeri kita. i nk jd 1 st malay CM for penang. haha
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