Ting says the discussion includes the appropriate steps to be taken by SFC in preventing the reoccurrence of the incident.
MIRI: The recent death of a city-dwelling hornbill here has saddened many Mirians, especially the nature-lovers, but on the positive side, it has also prompted the authorities to take steps to prevent such incident from reoccurring in the future.
The female bird succumbed to its injuries after it was attacked by stray dogs on March 1 at Piasau Nature Park.
According to Assistant Minister of Tourism, Culture and Arts Datuk Sebastian Ting, the park is home to a small population of Oriental-pied hornbills, as well as 107 plants and 75 fauna species.
“When I heard about the unfortunate incident, I brought the matter up for discussion during a Zoom meeting of the Piasau Nature Reserve (PNR) Implementation Endowment Fund Committee, on March 9,” he told The Borneo Post yesterday.
The committee is chaired by Datu Zaidi Mahdi, the permanent secretary to the Urban Development and Natural Resources Ministry of Sarawak.
Ting, who is Piasau assemblyman, said the issue was discussed at length, including the appropriate steps to be taken by Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC)in preventing the reoccurrence of the incident.
However, he did not specify any of the steps.
Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) Miri chairman Musa Musbah had, in a Facebook post on Thursday (March 11), disclosed about being informed by the SFC the death of a nesting female hornbill on March 1.
It is said that in the incident, a group of stray dogs grabbed the bird from a nesting hole in a tree and attacked it. A SFC employee, who saw the incident, immediately chased the dogs away and then sent the bird to the veterinary centre, but it later succumbed to its injuries.
Musa, a former SFC ranger, said although he was informed about the incident on March 1, the SFC only gave permission for it to be publicly announced just recently.
The first written record of the Oriental-pied hornbills at the nature reserve dated back to 2005 – when the site was still known as Piasau Camp – when the highly-publicised pair, ‘Jimmy’ and ‘Faridah’ were first photographed by Dominique Wan.
Sightings of this hornbill species at the camp later generated a lot of interest amongst members of the public, which prompted the implementation of monitoring efforts for the bird.
The 94-hectare PNR was a prime breeding ground for Jimmy and Faridah, which produced 56 offspring before Faridah was shot and killed in 2013.
Hornbills are known to pair for life – there were concerns about Jimmy’s well-being after Faridah perished.
A few months later, however, Jimmy was observed with ‘Juliet’ – an offspring of Jimmy and Faridah. Jimmy and Juliet then had two offspring, ‘Musa’ and ‘Cecilia’.
According to Musa, there are several known hornbill pairs nesting in the park apart from Jimmy and Juliet.
“There is also the pair of Anthony and Alice. The dead female (hornbill) could be Alice; the whereabouts of Anthony is still being tracked down by the authorities,” he said.