Paws, permits and private property

Walking into a house and seeing a spare bedroom, a kitchen and a car porch is hardly anything out of the ordinary. These are features many homes have.

Yet, a two-storey house in Pahang became a hot topic when more than 1,000 wildlife parts were found on the premises. The financial penalties? A staggering RM129mil fine.

In an article by wildlife trade monitoring organisation Traffic, three Vietnamese nationals were arrested in November 2023, convicted of illegally keeping wildlife parts and snares.

The February 2026 report detailed how animal parts had been found in rooms, the kitchen and the car. Alongside the hefty fine, the combined prison sentences exceeded 70 years, with the court ordering the terms to run concurrently.

This resulted in concurrent 12 years’ imprisonment, with additional jail time if the fines were unpaid.

For the property sector, it brings up an interesting question: How much do owners, neighbours and building managers really know about what happens behind a residential property’s doors? After all, there could be something climbing over the gates that definitely should not be there.

A sun bear not under the sun

Malaysia has a documented case of a wild animal being kept inside an apartment.

In June 2019, a sun bear cub was spotted through a window and the authorities were called. The owner was fined RM27,000 and pleaded guilty to two offences under the Wildlife Conservation Act 2010.

Keeping a wild animal in a home poses serious risks, ranging from property destruction to the direct endangerment of residents should the animal escape.

Even common pets such as dogs and cats are not exempt from building bylaws, but where do local authorities draw the regulatory line?

By-law 14 of the Strata Management (Maintenance and Management) Regulations 2015 does not impose a blanket prohibition on pets. Rather, it targets animals that cause a nuisance or annoyance, endanger the health and safety of other residents, or contravene statutory laws and local authority bylaws.

Keeping a pet at home is not necessarily against the law. However, calling it a pet does not exempt its owner from the rules governing which animals can be kept and where.

When wildlife becomes a business

Things get a little more complicated when people start paying to see the animals. Keeping a private collection is one thing, but what happens when the owner opens the gates for photography sessions or animal encounters?

Overseas, photography game farms offer controlled shoots with captive wildlife.

The practice has drawn criticism from the International League of Conservation Photographers that opposes these facilities. It stresses that photographs of captive animals should be labelled honestly.

For viewers, a photograph might look like a lucky encounter in the wild. Behind the camera, however, the animal could have been brought out specifically for the shoot.

There is no verified incidence in Malaysia but the overseas practice raises an interesting question. If someone has the space to keep wildlife, can they also turn it into a business?

The Department of Wildlife and National Parks Peninsular Malaysia grants approvals for zoo operation and permanent exhibition permits. Its licensing guidance identifies special permit requirements for activities involving totally protected wildlife.

In other words, permission to keep an animal is not a free pass to do anything with it. Inviting paying visitors onto the property brings another set of questions about the activity and whether the premises are approved for that use.

At the same time, a staged photograph alone does not prove that someone has broken the law. That would depend on what the operator is doing and the permissions they hold.

Room for more than a cage

A large garden might seem like the perfect place to keep an unusual animal. There is room for an enclosure, some greenery and perhaps even a separate entrance. What more could an owner need?

Quite a few questions pop up once visitors enter the picture. Where will they park? Will cars spill onto neighbouring roads? How close can visitors get to the animals and what happens if one escapes? An enclosure that looks secure in a photograph may tell visitors very little about how the place is managed.

Then there are less glamorous matters of cleaning, drainage and animal waste. These may not feature in the promotional pictures but they are likely to matter to the people living next door.

A house receiving the occasional guest is one thing. A property welcoming groups of paying customers throughout the day could place very different demands on its surroundings.

Before opening for business, an operator would need to establish which wildlife, planning and business approvals apply to the proposed activity and location.

Having enough land is only part of the equation.

After all, the neighbours have not signed up to live beside an animal attraction. Their concerns may have less to do with the species on display and more to do with noise, smells and vehicles blocking their driveway.

Whose responsibility?

There is another complication when the person keeping the animals is a tenant. A landlord might hand over the keys expecting the property to be used as a home. Animal enclosures and paid photography sessions may never have featured in that conversation.

This is where clear tenancy terms make or break the case.

What use was agreed upon? Does the owner know about the animals or the visitors? What happens when a neighbour raises concerns?

The answers would be important in assessing responsibility. Simply owning the property should not be treated as proof that a landlord was involved in an occupant’s wrongdoing. The Pahang case, for example, does not establish that a separate landlord was involved or liable.

Still, it shows how an ordinary home can be used for something far removed from everyday living. The sun bear case offers another reminder that what happens inside one unit can quickly become the concern of an entire building.

For home owners, the issue goes beyond whether there is sufficient physical space for an animal.

The real question is whether it can lawfully be kept there and whether such activities belong in a residential setting at all.

While a unit or compound may be private, the consequences rarely stay confined behind the gate or closed doors.