Brush with wild animals worrying

LOOK at a satellite photo of Penang island and you will see only about half the island is densely inhabited by people while it has a protected hill range boasting a diversity of flora and fauna.

The fauna part of the equation regularly surprises Penangites.

Adult pythons and cobras have been seen coiled up on the five-foot ways of shoplots in the George Town heritage enclave after night-long storms.

Wild boars occasionally leave the jungle and go walking in the streets in broad daylight.

The macaques are bordering on being a nuisance at residential schemes near the hills because they brazenly invade kitchens at times.

But last week’s island wildlife encounter was a most interesting one.

A freshwater turtle ventured into the carpark of a condominium block in Gelugor and get this: it wasn’t afraid of humans.

The female security guard on duty wanted to detain the fellow, but it would not have it. The turtle charged and chased the frightened woman.

It obviously did not know that many humans enjoy freshwater turtle soup.

My colleague lives there, and so she, her husband and son stepped forward and caught the turtle, lest it ventured onto a main road and became roadkill.

It was temporarily incarcerated in their condo balcony. And being practising Buddhists who abstain from killing living beings, the family had no intention of turning that turtle into soup.

So they called me. I know that freshwater turtles in Malaysia are listed as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

So being an environmentally responsible person, I called my contacts in the Fisheries Department, Wildlife and National Parks Department and an ichthyologist in Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) for advice.

They had no need of a live specimen for study, and after looking at the photo of the turtle, USM ichthyologist Dr Khaironizam Md Zain suggested that the nearest and most expansive environment for the critter was Sungai Muda on the northern border of Penang and Kedah.

The freshwater turtle, stretching its neck fully, desperate to go free in Sungai Nipah, Balik Pulau, Penang.

I agreed, but my colleague preferred to help the turtle return to its native habitat on the island.

My colleague’s rationale was that this turtle and the generations before it had thrived on Penang island, possibly from thousands of years ago when the island was still part of the mainland before the tectonic plates shifted.

It should therefore remain as a freshwater turtle living on an island because freshwater turtles do not have a habit of swimming across seas to islands. (They only have a habit of exploring condo carparks.)

There was an option of surrendering the turtle to Akuarium Tunku Abdul Rahman in Batu Maung, but this would mean a lifetime in captivity, waiting for humans to feed it. Not so appealing, yes?

That left only one place - Sungai Nipah in Balik Pulau.

Decades ago, this small river was dammed up with a floodgate at its mouth for padi field irrigation.

Its flow extends into many kilometres of padi field canals in Balik Pulau, perfect for an ambush hunter like a freshwater turtle.

My colleague and her family named their charge “Ninja Turtle”, and I wonder if they knew how accurate the name is.

This fella loves to bury itself into soft mud or sand in the shallows, with only its eyes and snout exposed.

It waits for fish, shrimp, frogs or snails to pass by, and then its head snaps forward with lightning speed to grab its meal.

It can stay buried like that all day, choosing a depth that allows it to stretch its disproportionately long neck out and up to the water surface to catch a breath.

Its neck can be 30cm long, growing longer as the turtle grows larger.

It comes out of its ambush point only in the dead of the night.

When my colleague’s husband held the turtle by its carapace and approached the river, I marvelled at the turtle’s instinctive behaviour.

It initially kept its head deeply tucked into its shell, but at the riverbank, it seemed to recognise the environment.

It became frantic, its flippers flaying wildly, even clawing at my colleague’s husband’s hands.

And it stretched its impossibly long neck out to the fullest extent as if that would lead it to the water. How on Earth do these turtles keep such a long neck stashed in their shells?

After a few more seconds for photos and videos and enduring a few scratches from its needle-sharp claws, we freed the turtle back in the wild.

I can understand why we find snakes on five-foot ways because they live in our sewers and thrive on the abundance of rats.

I can understand wild boars wandering in the streets, drawn by the smell of food.

But I don’t understand how an aquatic reptile like a turtle came to be in a condo carpark.

I can only put this encounter down to increased urbanisation on Penang island.

It is good for Penangites to be more prepared and protective of the wildlife.