KANGAR: Persatuan Ekologi Malaysia (PEM) president Prof Dr Ahmad Ismail called on all parties, including the government, non-governmental agencies and communities to work together to protect and preserve the Nakawan Range, which includes the habitat for the stump-tailed macaque, a threatened species.
“There are fragile forest areas in this range and it needs to be fully protected to ensure the stability and sustainability of the flora, fauna and ecology, which includes the stump-tailed macaque.
“There are spaces which could be used for eco-tourism too,” he told Bernama recently.
He said the relevant state government agencies need to conduct detailed studies on these macaques, such as their behaviour patterns, changes in their ecology and how they adapt to it.
“Studies on potential human-primate conflict are also important now with the shrinking of forested areas and tourism activities on the rise,” he said.
Prof Ahmad, who was former president of the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS), said, apart from the preservation of the habitat, awareness on the matter must be raised through education programmes.
Perlis Nature and Wildlife (PNW) founder Syamil Abd Rahman was in total agreement and called for stricter enforcement and greater efforts to raise the public’s awareness so that they understand the situation better, especially the orchard owners within the stump-tailed macaques’ habitat.
He urged the relevant authorities to inspect the wildlife crossing signs and gazette the stump-tailed macaques’ habitat as a wildlife reserve.
Syamil said fig trees are one of the main food sources for the macaques, and people, especially orchard owners, must be made aware of the fact so that they do not cut these trees down.
He said a 2020 study by a local university titled “The Composition of Stump-Tailed Macaque (Macaca arctoides) Diet” at the Perlis State Park, using the Metabarcoding DNA method, found that figs are a main food group source for the primates.
He said the study also identified 145 species of plants as forming part of the macaques’ diet, of which figs made up 11.70 per cent.
The Red List of Threatened Species issued by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), included the stump-tailed macaque in 2020, he said. – BERNAMA
