he critically endangered Malayan Tiger will go extinct if no drastic action is taken to address its decline in population, says Dr Xavier Jayakumar.
“Malaysia will forever lose this species between the next five and 10 years,” said the Water, Land and Natural Resources Minister when answering a question by Ahmad Fahmi Mohamed Fadzil (Pakatan-Lembah Pantai) yesterday.
Dr Xavier said there were less than 200 tigers left in the wild based on the 1st National Tiger Survey, carried out between 2016 and last year, covering 75% of 44,000sq km of the jungle.
Among the steps taken to address the problem, Dr Xavier said, was to impose a moratorium on the hunting of Barking and Sambar deers, between Nov 1, 2016 and Nov 30, 2021.
He added that patrols in 20 illegal hunting hotspots had also been stepped up, involving 200 wildlife officers.
On Sunday, Dr Xavier said that he personally was in favour of a shoot-on-sight policy against wildlife poachers.
However, he said that the government would not consider taking this drastic approach at the moment.
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