An AP report stated that commercial fishing boats are part of a network of routes used by sophisticated teams of poachers to move parts of illegally killed Malayan tigers and other poached animals to Vietnam.
The report on the critically endangered Malayan tiger cited a study by Sunway University and conservation organisations Panthera and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).
More than four dozen people involved in the operations, including poachers and those who brokered sales of the illicit goods, were interviewed as part of the research released today.
Researchers learned that fishing boats were also used to carry bear paws and bile, live civets, wild boar tusks and meat, pangolins, monitor lizards and turtles.
One person told researchers the fishing boats were ideal to send larger items like tiger skins.
“Nobody checks,” the interviewee was quoted as saying. “In addition, people can go back by boat, so many things can also be brought back by this route.”
The report stated that Malaysia and Vietnam have both been increasing maritime controls lately, making trafficking by fishing boats riskier.
It added that Malaysian authorities have also had success in catching poachers and have substantially increased punishments for wildlife crime in recent years.
“We can’t arrest our way out of a problem or over-rely on the criminal justice system,” said ZSL’s Gopalasamy Reuben Clements, a co-author of the report.
“We need to explore other approaches – such as highly targeted behavioural change interventions – that can run in parallel to arrests and prosecutions.”
In the 1950s, there were an estimated 3,000 Malayan tigers in Malaysia, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
However, loss of habitat due to rapid development, agriculture expansion and widespread hunting, has caused the population to decline to fewer than 150 as of 2022.
They have also been falling victim in recent years to the canine distemper virus. A major source of food, the wild boar, has been decimated by the African swine fever virus.
Demand for tiger body parts for use in Chinese traditional medicine has attracted poachers from Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.
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