THE heartbreaking photos of a tigress and her two foetuses greeted many social media users on their gadgets two weeks ago.
The tiger had been accidentally run over by a car bound for Kuala Terengganu along the East Coast Expressway 2, which cut through a forest reserve.
Sadly, the Malayan Tiger has been declared a critically endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The IUCN is the authority that lists endangered and threatened species around the world.
There are no hard figures on how many Malayan Tigers there are, but studies have estimated there could only be between 250 and 340 adult individuals left in the wild.
We can definitely deduct one adult and two babies now. It was an accident, and by no means is the driver of the car to be labelled a wildlife murderer.
Conservationists and armchair environmentalists alike have made their thoughts known about how development is to be blamed for the death of the tiger.
The thought of a highway cutting through a forest reserve made them baulk and share photos of how wildlife crossings or passageways should be built to cater to wildlife where highways are built.
And strong feelings about not building roads at all where there are forests were expressed.
The first wildlife crossing was built in France in the 1950s and the concept subsequently caught on in European countries such as the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany in the effort to reduce wildlife road conflicts.
Wildlife crossings come in many forms around the world, including underpasses, viaducts, overpasses, culverts, green roofs for birds and creatures that take flight, and even fish and amphibian tunnels.
When social media reacted to the death of the tigress two weeks ago, many armchair warriors hit out at the government for not having wildlife crossings by sharing photos of these structures built overseas. It was an attempt to educate the government on what such crossings look like. Many do not realise that there are wildlife crossings in the peninsula, which have existed for more than 10 years.
However, much still needs to be done for new highways and expressways that are coming up. And Eye cannot emphasise enough that Malaysia is still lacking in terms of prioritising the conservation of its own species.
But just how effective are these wildlife crossings?
As much as they are meant to allow connections between habitats that have been fragmented by mankind, studies show that their effectiveness depends largely on where they are placed.
In most cases, little study is conducted to determine the location of these wildlife crossings and the structures are built solely to appease conservationists.
Sometime in 2014, a national daily featured wildlife crossings or eco viaducts and their effectiveness in an interview with Malaysian biologist Dr Gopalasamy Reuben Clements.
Clements, by then, had already earmarked a project to monitor animal movements by placing camera traps at 10 of these eco viaducts in Peninsular Malaysia.
Out of these 10, three were specifically built as animal crossings while the others provided an alternative means as passageways.
He found that the animal crossings were used by half the mammal species that were recorded in the forests near these roads and highways.
Yet, even with efforts by Clements and other conservationists and researchers, a lot more needs to be done to truly understand the movement patterns of animals to conclude if these viaducts are effective.
Alas, funding is always sorely lacking where conservation work is concerned, particularly here in Malaysia. Conservation research and efforts do not come cheap.
It also happens to be a field of science which has been on the decline in interest among the younger generation who prefer to go into more glamorous careers which make money.
Conservation work entails long hours in the field, data analysis and hardly or no financial rewards. It is a job driven by passion, more than anything else. Wildlife crossings are just one way of mitigating the number of road kill along highways.
Conservationists would be the first to say, don’t build highways or roads where there is interesting or diverse wildlife.
Leave the wild be and not destroy their habitats which still hold secrets that would one day be able to save humankind. This would, of course, be the ideal scenario.
Immediately after the incident of the tiger being run over, news dailies in the peninsula also carried stories on how five construction giants are now in the running for an RM2 billion contract to construct viaducts for the Mass Rapid Transit line 2 (MRT 2) project.
The MRT 2 project runs from Sungai Buloh before going through Serdang up to its final stop in Putrajaya with a total of 36 stations.
It was disgusting, the way the news was carried after the death of the tigress. It seemed almost ‘opportunistic’ that such news came up after the loss of a precious wild creature. Perhaps the media played it up the wrong way.
Eye believe these viaducts that are being bid for are not meant solely for wildlife, but also a bridge for humans on both sides of the rail lines.
Back to the tigress that died along with its two foetuses. Many Malaysians speculated that it was attempting to cross the road, because it was hungry and in search of food, or because it was looking for a safe place to be. This speaks volumes about how much more needs to be done for wildlife conservation, particularly in Peninsular Malaysia where development takes precedence.
And let us not get to the stage where we will face the same problems with our wildlife here in Sarawak.
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