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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: January/February 2007

Which wild pigs are running amok in Malaysia? And why now?

 

KUALA LUMPUR-- Rampaging wild pigs are a problem in Malaysia, practically all sources agree. Less clear is which wild pigs are the culprits.

Malaysia has native warty pigs and bearded pigs, as well as abundant feral domestic pigs--and they can hybridize.

The warty pigs and bearded pigs are subjects of conservation concern, albeit perhaps more as prey for highly endangered tigers than for their own sake. Malaysia now has as few as 500 tigers, down from more than 3,000 circa 1950.

Feral and hybrid pigs are also prey for tigers, but conservationists tend to view feral and hybrid pigs as unwelcome competitors for warty and bearded pig habitat.

Both conservationists and ordinary rural Malaysians also worry that because pigs of domestic ancestry tend to live closer to human habitation, they might draw tigers closer too, into greater likelihood of attacking humans. Unlike in India, where much of the human population is uniquely tolerant of occasional fatal attacks by wildlife, any attack in Malaysia tends to result in the animal's demise. If wildlife officials fail to hunt the suspected animal(s) down, vigilantes intervene.

Reports of miscreant pig behavior seldom distinguish among the species. Perhaps all Malaysian wild pigs are now behaving badly.

On the other hand, perhaps the pig incidents of today are a delayed consequence of the Nipah virus outbreak of 1999, when efforts to eradicate much of the domestic pig population sent any pig who could escape the killing into the hills on the run.

Seven years later, the descendants of refugee pigs and any other pigs the refugees met in flight may be trying to reclaim their ancestral habitat in muddy village streets and dumps.

Pigs have not been well thought of by most Malaysians in many centuries, if ever. Neither the Muslim majority (58%) nor most of the Hindu minority (7%) eat pork. The Muslims, especially, tend to consider pigs unclean. The ethnic Chinese minority (28%) do eat and raise pigs--and that has been a frequent flashpoint for racial and sectarian conflict, when entrepreneurs have tried to raise pigs in the wrong villages or wrong neighborhoods,

At least 108 Malaysians died of the mysterious Nipah virus during the first half of 1999. Almost all of them worked at pig farms, or lived near pig farms. The native reservoir for Nipah virus turned out to be wild fruit bats, also known as flying foxes.

Historically, the bats lived in deep forest and kept to themselves. In early 1999, however, deforestation associated with log poaching and forest fires set to clear land for slash-and-burn agriculture drove thousands of hungry bats away from their mountain homes, into agricultural districts, where rotting produce collected for pigs provided an alternative food source.

Sick and weak, many bats died. Pigs ate them, incubated the Nipah virus, and passed it to their caretakers.

The Malaysia government sought to contain Nipah virus by sending soldiers to kill more than a million pigs between mid-March and mid-May 1999. About 1,800 pig farms were closed, impoverishing an estimated 300,000 Malaysians, mostly ethnic Chinese, whose livelihoods had depended on the pork industry.

Despite the discontent of the former pig farmers, pig-related problems seemed for a time to cease being a public issue. Complaints voiced in the Malaysia Star in early 2005 concerned wild pigs making noise at night, uprooting banana trees, smashing flower pots, and biting a dog who tried to chase marauding pigs back to the jungle.

On April 5, 2005, however, in Kampung Nakhoda, a rampaging boar injured three-year-old Mohd Manshah Saputra and two men in their fifties who apparently tried to come to his aid. Running into a mosque, widely seen as an act of desecration, the boar was cornered and shot.

On November 25, 2005, a boar charged into a private school at Taman Angsa Mas in Kuala Sawah, Rantau, scattering 15 children, injuring a six-year-old, and repeatedly biting four-year-old Tan Pei Fun, who received 10 stitches. Forty hunters spent three days tracking and killing the boar.

The wild attacks seemed to focus continuing background concern about disease transmission and pollution associated with pigs.

Malacca state rural development and agriculture committee chair Yunus Husin in March 2006 ordered that the Malacca pig herd be reduced from about 120,000 to just 48,000, "which is enough to meet demand in Malacca," wrote Star reporters Lee Yuk Peng and Christina Tan.

"The number of pigs are to be reduced because of water pollution and the smell, and as a precaution against possible outbreaks of the Nipah virus and other diseases," explained Husin.

"I hope non-Muslims will be more sensitive to this matter," said state assembly member Abu Pit.
But reducing the numbers of owned pigs seemed to have no effect on the behavior of feral pigs.
On June 14, 2006 two boars attacked K. Nagaraju, 44, as he sprayed pesticide at Felcra Serting, Bahau. One boar chased Nagaraju when he fled, knocked him down, and bit him to death on the chest and stomach. Game rangers shot the boar at the scene about an hour later.

On November 4, 2006, a boar invaded a restaurant in Kuantan, biting Abdullah Hamid Bakar, 48, before passer-by Nik Hassan Nik Lah, 41, clubbed and stabbed the boar to death.

Charged by a boar on November 30, 2006, while feeding her chickens, Apipah Ahmad, 63, of Kuala Kangsar, prayed for deliverance while suffering multiple bites on her hands, legs, and back. "I fell down as the boar ran toward me and began gnawing at my body," she told the Star. "When he went for my face, I could only use both my hands to fend him off. But when I shouted 'God is great' three times, the boar suddenly fell on his side, enabling me to run to safety."

Children were previously attacked by wild pigs in the same neighborhood, the Star reported, and an elderly motorcyclist had been killed when he hit a boar.

"We don't understand why these animals are now coming out from the jungle to our house," said Jeorge Subramaniam, 56, after one recent incident.

But there appear to be more pigs than ever in the dwindling Malaysian forests. Like the people whose houses and farms keep expanding into former rainforest, the pigs have few other places to go.