- KUALA LUMPUR - Ghazali Abdullah yelled in horror as a 150-pound tiger pounced
on his 10-year-old son, who was screaming in pain.
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- "I was shouting 'Allahu Akbar!'
(God is Greatest) and growling as I waved my hand to imitate a tiger,"
Ghazali, 41, told the Star newspaper as he recalled the December attack
in the northern state of Kelantan.
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- Distracted by the father's shouts, the
tiger released the boy, who survived with 30 stitches. The attack at the
edge of a palm oil estate renewed concerns over the spread of plantation
land into the habitats of endangered species in Malaysia.
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- "It's a known fact that we are developing
a lot of land for agriculture and timber extraction. The tiger's habitat
is reduced by land clearing," World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Malaysia
spokesman Teoh Teik Hoong said.
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- As the habitats of man and wildlife have
drawn closer, the chances of attacks by animals have increased dramatically,
environment activists say.
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- Game rangers from Malaysia's Wildlife
and National Parks Department, Perhilitan, and even the country's army
have been mobilized to track down the tiger that attacked Nasharuddin.
Three traps were set without success.
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- Perhilitan officials said they were confident
the tiger would eventually be captured and sent to a zoo.
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- "But if it's not possible we'll
have to use the last resort. We'll have to shoot it because if you don't
do that it may cause a lot of negative circumstances," Perhilitan's
wildlife management unit chief E. Sivananthan told Reuters.
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- In July, rangers shot dead a tiger that
had killed two men and some livestock, outraging conservationists.
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- Tigers in Danger
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- Tigers are highly endangered. Globally,
some 5,000 to 7,500 survive in the wild, according to WWF Malaysia.
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- The Indo-Chinese tiger is the only species
in Malaysia. Of the 2,000 Indo-Chinese tigers in the world, about 500 roam
the jungles of peninsular Malaysia, Perhilitan estimates.
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- Historically, the world's largest cat
has been revered in Malaysia as a symbol of strength and power. The country's
royal crest portrays two tigers on either side of the coat of arms.
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- But as recently as the 1950s, before
concerns over the tiger's extinction had grown, authorities were still
encouraging tiger hunting. In 1976, the tiger was classified as a Totally
Protected Animal under Malaysia's Protection of Wild Life Act, making it
illegal to kill tigers.
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- Instances of the tiger being killed for
its body parts, once popularly used in traditional medicines and for ornamental
purposes, may be decreasing. But experts say increased land clearing in
recent years has become a major threat, endangering the tiger's habitat.
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- "Perhaps with the economic slowdown
there is extra pressure on land clearing because the government is encouraging
agriculture," Teoh said.
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- Palm oil, quoted in U.S. dollars, has
been especially lucrative as its price has risen in line with the ringgit's
fall since mid-1997.
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- The director general of forestry for
peninsular Malaysia, Hashim Saad, said last June that about 7 million acres
of the country's forest would be cleared and eventually converted to housing,
industry, agriculture and other uses.
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- Teoh said land development restricted
the levels of natural prey and interrupted the tiger's breeding cycle.
"The range each tiger normally needs is a radius of about 20 kilometres
(12 miles)," he said.
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- Inevitably, tigers find themselves within
short distance of humans and livestock.
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- "It comes out of its habitat to
look for food. Most of the time, it goes for easy prey such as cattle and
goats," Teoh said, adding that an increase in forest preservation
land would help protect the remaining tigers.
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- Using remote cameras in jungle ranges,
authorities are trying to count the number of tigers " a census in
the wild.
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- "Once this is done, we can sit down
with the villagers and hopefully come up with something," Teoh said.
"We always say the tiger encroaches into human areas. But we are actually
the ones who are encroaching on their habitat."
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