When he was a boy, scientist Dr Mark Rayan Darmaraj used to read books about tigers. In the books, the tigers, he recalls, are often portrayed as the “king of the jungle”.
“This for me – then and even now – means that tigers are the protectors of the forest and all the beings in it,” he says.
For a young Darmaraj, the tiger was not just another charismatic species; from reading all those books and watching every documentary he could, even then he knew that the animal played a pivotal role in regulating the food chain in forests.
“I was always drawn to know more, and if possible to experience them firsthand, to understand tiger ecology, how the animals respond to human-induced disturbances and, more importantly, what to do so that they continue to thrive in their natural habitat,” says the 44-year-old Penangite.
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The first chance he got to observe and walk in the trail of the tiger, Darmaraj “grabbed it”, as he put it. “This was when I first started researching tigers in the wild in 2004,” he explains in an e-mail interview.
Today, that same fascination with tigers has continued to drive Darmaraj’s career. He is currently the country director for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Malaysia Programme; before that, he led WWF-Malaysia’s tiger conservation programme for over a decade, during which he was often – and still is – interviewed as the foremost expert on the critically endangered Malayan tiger.
And while he has also published articles and journals on other species, Darmaraj currently happens to be the first and only Malaysian with a PhD in tiger ecology.
It took four years to complete his PhD research in 2012 at the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) at the University of Kent in England.
The effort, which focuses on the conservation of tigers and their prey in Peninsular Malaysia, won him the Thomas Huxley Prize from the Zoological Society of London for the best PhD thesis in the United Kingdom in 2013 as well as the Fiona Alexander Prize in 2014 for being an outstanding PhD student from DICE.
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Far from the academic world, Darmaraj’s pursuit of tigers first began in an area in Jeli, Kelantan, where there had been reports of the animal killing humans. It then continued in the Belum-Temenggor Forest Complex in Perak where he first experienced the heart-breaking snaring of a tiger by poachers. The tiger was rescued but died later in captivity.
Darmaraj then moved on to understanding more about how the species is faring in the Southern Forest Complex of Endau-Rompin, Pahang, where WCS Malaysia works.
“My keen interest in knowing more about tigers and other wildlife is in no way over and the journey continues after two decades,” he says.
That journey hasn’t been a walk in the park – or in his case, the Malaysian jungle – literally and metaphorically.
The elusive nature of the Malayan tiger, which is a master at hiding in the dense foliage of the country’s tropical rainforest, coupled with disturbance factors affecting the species as well as its habitat and prey, mean that it can be quite a challenge to study the animal.
But he insists it can still be done with a lot of field effort, funding and resources.
Even more challenging for Darmaraj is the ability to meaningfully interpret the results of field studies and provide science-based recommendations to help conserve the tigers.
“From a research standpoint, I must say that what is severely lacking is more in-depth knowledge on threats such as poaching and the illegal wildlife trade, the lack of prey, and disease vulnerabilities.
“I think we have reached the point where just knowing the number of tigers or where they are found is not sufficient,” he says.
That in itself is an achievement in studying this stealthy animal, though.
The preliminary results of the first National Tiger Survey, conducted from 2016 to 2018, revealed that there are fewer than 200 tigers in 75% of the surveyed plots, down from some 3,000 in the 1950s.
In addition to the above mentioned obstacles, poaching and human-tiger conflict have continued to hinder the conservation of the Malayan tiger, and in fact much of the wildlife in Malaysia, including the sambar deer, one of the tiger’s main prey animals.
With an estimated 150 tigers now left in the wild, where, besides poachers, they face danger from diseases like canine distemper from people’s pets, Darmaraj admits that there isn’t a day that goes by without him feeling that we are slowly losing these majestic animals.
In 2019, he was quoted in an English daily, warning that the country could lose its tigers in “two or three years” and that the species is on the brink of extinction.
“If we can’t save our tigers, supposedly the most iconic and charismatic of our animals, what will the future hold for other wildlife in Malaysia?
“Doesn’t that thought sadden or bother you as a Malaysian? Is there still hope?
“It is a hard pill to swallow. But if we ever had a chance to save them before it’s too late, it is now, when strategic intervention is critically needed,” he says.
Recent initiatives announced by the Malaysian government have sparked hope in Darmaraj – like the time that camera traps set up by WWF-Malaysia in Begum-Temenggor captured images of a tigress with three cubs in 2020.
Then, Darmaraj penned a “Message of Hope” that efforts to stabilise the species’ population were at last starting to pay off.
Public attitudes, he observes, have started to change too.
“My biggest obstacle in the past had been to first disseminate knowledge about tigers to the general public and to convince politicians and decisionmakers to save tigers and the forest.
“I think we have reached an intermediary stage for both of these, where the man on the street knows that we have wild tigers and it is important to save them, while government initiatives such as the formation of the Tiger Task Force led by the highest political will seems to give some hope.”
Darmaraj cites initiatives such as the anti-poaching Operasi Bersepadu Khazanah, the formation of the National Tiger Conservation Task Force chaired by the Prime Minister, as well as the setting up of a Wildlife Crime Bureau under the police as indications that Malaysia is heading in the right direction.
He is hoping that the National Tiger Task Force, particularly, will be a game-changer.
“It is chaired by the highest political position of the country and has representation of state governments that decide on land matters.
“The question now is will the new initiatives take a ‘business as usual’ approach or will those directing them vigorously work to close gaps in breaking the illegal wildlife trade chain, curbing poaching, preventing forest conversion [from reserved to development status, which means allowing logging and plantations], providing safe passage for wildlife movement, augmenting large prey, and minimising disease vulnerabilities?
“My sincere hope is that we will succeed in saving the king of the Malaysian jungle for future generations to experience, to cherish and be proud of in our country.”
StarLifestyle will be running a series of articles on the conservation of Malayan tigers in conjunction with the Year of the Tiger 2022. Join us as we report on the race to save from extinction this magnificent animal that is on Malaysia's national crest. Share your thoughts on the effort at lifestyle@thestar.com.my.
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