It's Tough Being An Urban Animal in Malaysia

Certain photos may be offensive, if you feel that it is so please avoid this post. Thank you.

Let's face it, urbanisation is clearing the forests, draining rivers and causing an unprecedented encroachment of people in what one was animal habitats. We fell timber, straighten rivers for drainage, built large housing estates, let factory and sewage discharge enter waterways and clear areas for large scale agriculture ala palm oil estates. A legacy of this is that many animals once living in their natural habitat are now finding themselves nearer and closer to 'civilization' not by their own choice mind you as I believe they wouldn't have anything to do with us if they can help it.

Now instead of sympathising with such displaced fauna, we labeled them nuisance, pests, disease carriers and a threat to humans. We are quite accustomed to strays such as cats and dogs which often result from negligent humans who discard pets which they no longer find manageable or upon the unplanned arrivals of a batch of puppies or kittens. Now we often hear people complaining about dogs and why is that?

Why do we hear of sadistic municipal councilmen entering illegally to people's property and shooting helpless dogs in front of their owners (in some cases children), mass rounding up of dogs in the street and such forth. Why are there no similar effort to reduce feral cat populations in our neighbourhoods? I must acknowledge that stray dogs can be dangerous, they can be mean and if threatened (which some people still insist on invoking these strays and later cry foul ofter suffering injury) and can harm people. Others are diseased of so neglected that they are diseased or reduced to skin and bones. I agree that these should be put down for their sake as well as our own. But some measures are beyond comprehension such as threatening family pets, putting up unreasonable restrictions to dog owners and now we have a free for all dog hunting contest courtesy of Majlis Perbandaran Selayang.

SHOOT ME, I'M WORTH SOME CASH TO MPS

Yes we are still like hillbillies running amok with gun ablaze shooting at anything that moves. Never mind that some misguided fools would go to extreme to earn money in any way possible (can we say drug addicts, vagrants etc?) and may resort to illegal and unethical means to obtain the bounty. It would be frightening to hear one day of people poisoning dogs, strays and pets alike, just to turn in the corpse for cash. Others may resort to using cruel methods like clubbing, shooting and injuring dogs to make them easier to catch. It would be a sad day if it comes to that, especially for a dog lover like me.

I lost my home, now I am about to lose my life. Public enemy number one.

Last month as well, we heard that urban monkeys are no longer restricted as a trade item. Imagine those poor simians who have lost their forests and normal food and are now living in cities and forced to hunt by foraging in garbage cans, never mind most of them are already addicted to human junk food. And lets not go into the recent ruckus of Melaka farmers standoff in protest of attempts by the State authorities effort to shut them down. Truly it does not bode well for animals where humans are concerned. There is a saying that we measure humanity on how we treat our animals and Malaysia would surely score low in this department seeing how things are now. I wonder if problems are worse off than they should be due to the fact that both dogs and pigs are haram in Islam and considering how hard some quarters are pushing for Islamization of Malaysia.

Mass murder of any being for the sole purpose of murder is genocide.