Category: Animal Rights EN

The Consumer Association of Penang (CAP) welcomes the recent arrests of wildlife poachers and the seizure of wildlife parts worth millions of ringgit. Nonetheless, the sheer quantity of wildlife contraband seized, including those seized en-route to or re-exported from Malaysia, is alarming. Several raids around  the country, complete with wildlife seizures, do not necessarily mean that law...

Bear attacks, foraging elephants, prowling panthers, wandering tigers—many human-animal conflicts have been making headlines lately. Human-wildlife conflicts (HWCs) have increased significantly as human populations continue to expand, turning forests to agriculture, highways,  roads and railways through what were once remote regions, and building homes and communities on lands where animals...

The Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) expresses sadness at the loss of human lives as a result of recent crocodile attacks.  It is also sad that the media depicts crocodiles as rogues preying on humans.  However, crocodiles cannot be entirely blamed as they are the apex predators surviving on their natural instincts to hunt their prey in their habitat. While crocodiles are dangerous they...

The tragic death of wildlife ranger Joe Fred Lansou deeply saddens the Consumers Association of Penang (CAP). Incidents like this are a testament to how challenging it is to manage elephants in captive environments.  It is unclear what triggers a sudden elephant attack or why incidents like this occur. On 25 December 2022, Lansou was gored to death by a captive adult elephant while he was...

Every lunar new year is associated with one of the 12 zodiac animals, each bringing with them their own good fortune and strengths.  With just weeks to go before the year of the rabbit is ushered, the Consumer Association of Penang (CAP) urges the public not to be tempted into buying a pet rabbit on impulse. In a consumer-oriented society people are tempted to get the animal associated with the...

The Consumer Association of Penang (CAP) welcomes the news of the arrest of a Malaysian wildlife trafficker and his extradition to the United States. According to the news release by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) on 30 June 2022, he was arrested by the Thai police in Bangkok. If convicted, this would show the world that wildlife traffickers are criminals and that crime does not...

More people are switching to cost-saving and energy-saving light emission diodes (LED) lights and this includes outdoors such as highways and gardens. No doubt LEDs are energy efficient and generate significantly less heat than their predecessors, incandescent and fluorescent lamps, they, however, is a bane to nocturnal animals. LEDs engender other forms of environmental and human health hazards...

Elephants in Peninsula Malaysia are running out of space as evidenced by frequent reports of human-elephant conflict (HEC) in the local media.  HEC is the result of habitat loss and habitat fragmentation which are the main threats to elephants in Peninsula Malaysia. Hemmed in from all sides, elephants meet many challenges: construction of dams and highways, intensive agricultural activities,...