Expert: Little being done to protect hunted serow

Under threat: A serow caught on camera in the Malaysian jungle. — Photo courtesy of Stephen Hogg

PETALING JAYA: Amid the excitement of ushering in the Year of the Goat, environmentalists are bemoan­ing the fate of Malaysia’s only native goat – the heavily-hunted Sumatran serow.

Standing up to 1m at shoulder height, the serow is a shy and solitary animal that can be found in mountain forests, said Traffic Southeast Asia regional director Dr Chris Shepherd.

“It is very large, black, and has a mane like a horse. It has very sharp horns,” he said in an interview.

Dr Shepherd said that very little was known about Malaysia’s serow, its numbers or its effect on ecosystems.

Most people, he said, had never come across, much less seen, a serow except on dinner plates and in medicine shops here.

“The trade in them is extremely heavy. People eat them, use their horns (and use) them in traditional medicine,” he said.

Fully protected under conservation laws, it can only be hunted via a special permit issued by the Natural Resources and Environment Minister.

Those found guilty of hunting, taking or keeping serow parts can be fined between RM100,000 to RM500,000 and be jailed up to five years.

However, Dr Shepard said little was being done to stop the killing of serow.

In a 2012 Traffic survey of 165 restaurants serving wild meat nationwide, 18 of them had serow on the menu. Six were in Johor.

Citing the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, Dr Shepherd said only 10 confiscations of serow parts were recorded from January 2003 to January 2012, with only five convictions.

He said that the serow were threatened by habitat loss, adding that limestone hills which it frequented were often quarried for cement.

It was reported that the serow was found in parts of Gunung Kanthan in Perak, which were eyed by a cement company there for mining.

Dr Shepherd clarified that goats in farms here may have originated from Africa, adding that they were definitely not from Malaysia.

A serow seen at Templer's Park. Photo WWF. 

He added that the only area in the whole country set up to protect the serow was in Klang Gates, Selangor.

However, he added that it was probably empty of serow today.

There are no serow in Sabah and Sarawak.

The IUCN Red List – which tracks threatened species worldwide – lists the Sumatran serow as a “vulnerable” animal, although Dr Shepherd said it was probably a lot more threatened.

“I doubt that it’s in the thousands. We need to see these wild meat restaurants shut down, and people need to stop eating them,” he said.