Pandas versus orangutans?

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RECENTLY a local professor from Universiti Sains Malaysia’s (USM) School of Biological Sciences Ecology, Aquatic Botany and Weed Science was quoted as saying that most Malaysians know more about the panda than our own orang-utan.

Academician and researcher Prof Dr Mashhor Mansor was quoted in many news dailies and portals that while Malaysians are all hyped up over two pandas, which are on loan from China, many of them do not know much about the orang-utan.

He had spoken at the First International Primate/Orang-Utan Dialogue held a few weeks back at USM. He also pointed out that many still think that the orang-utan is a monyet (monkey).

Reading his statement, Eye can safely say he is referring mainly to Malaysians in the peninsula and urban areas.

Things are different here in Sarawak and Sabah. At least we know our orang-utan and we’re not lining up to buy tickets to see two pandas. As iconic as the orang-utan is to many of us here in Borneo and to the Mat Sallehs who are fighting for its cause, the orang-utan and its Malaysian counterparts – like the Malaysian Tiger still get very little attention from other Malaysians compared to the panda.

Again, reading between the lines of the good professor’s statement, the Eye cannot help but think that most urbanites and well, the younger generation in this country, including those in Sarawak and Sabah are slowly losing touch with the wildlife in their own backyards.

We tend to know more about wildlife from other countries – giraffes, lions, polar bears, rabbits, koala bears, kangaroos, penguins more than we know our own Ukang, Rasung, Lotong, Wak-wak, Kera Antu, or Kubong.

Have no idea what these are? Well, anyone still living near the forests would know what they look like or have at least heard of them. Those in town? Eye bet most of you are still scratching your heads, wondering what these animals look like. Eye will leave the curious urbanites to find out what these creatures are through their own initiative.

Well, we can blame this whole not knowing our own wildlife on the alphabet learning books we were exposed to as toddlers which showed P for Polar Bear and K for Kangaroo.

We have identified wildlife and animals with those that are highly publicised in zoos around the world and through television programmes. There is very little publicity that feature our very own wildlife.

In schools, we receive textbooks that are printed in the peninsula featuring gajah, monyet, the generic burung antu and burung helang and harimau as Malaysian wildlife. It is as if these are the only Malaysian animals, besides the domestic cat, dog and livestock.

Although there are tapirs in the peninsula, strangely, this creature is also hardly acknowledged by authors of school textbooks.

These textbook authors should really educate themselves beyond gajah, monyet, helang, burung hantu and harimau (elephant, monkey, eagle, owl and tiger).

But if you think it is only Malaysians who do not appreciate their own wildlife, well, think again. The situation is similar in developed countries.   Acclaimed ecologist and author Douglas Tallamy recognises a similar situation in the United States.

“We decided to convert the forests that used to cover our living and working spaces into huge expanses of lawn dotted with a few small, mostly non-native trees,” he said when referring to Americans not knowing about their own native wildlife including plants.

All over the world, there is still much work to be done in appreciating wildlife.

According to LiveScience.com, although researchers have been categorising wild plants and animals for more than 250 years, we still do not have an exact answer to the question of how many animal and plant species call Earth their home.

In the US, the National Science Foundation’s ‘Tree of Life’ project estimates that there could be anywhere from five million to 100 million species on the planet. Science through a tedious process has only identified about two million to date.

We can also put the whole thing of knowing more about other wildlife than our own down to human nature.

We tend to be more curious and concerned about what we do not have compared to what we do have.

We want things that are exotic to us and take for granted what we have in our own backyards.

To say that there are no efforts being made to research on and promote our own wildlife would be inaccurate.

Eye can say for sure that in Sarawak, there are groups of very driven wildlife researchers in our local universities, state agencies and NGOs. These are the handful of people who are very passionate and concerned about the wildlife that live and roam in our forests, who are finding ways to conserve and protect them.

Sadly, many young school leavers today are shying away from this sort of work as it is a long, painstaking, low paying and unglamorous.

According to a friend who has worked with a local NGO, funding to cover logistics to traverse the deep forests and to carry out research and subsequently publish the findings is hard to come by, let alone to cover the pay of the people involved.

Local researchers often have to bid for funding from international organisations to carry out their work here, he added.

This is really sad, considering the amount of money the federal government is dishing out for the upkeep of the two pandas on loan from China. Why isn’t the money being used for work on Malaysia’s own wildlife instead?

And for those who are still in the dark, the orang-utan is a great ape, just like you and Eye. Not a monkey.

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