Our living treasures

Normal, Weekender
Source:

The National, Friday July 20th, 2012

PAPUA New Guinea is a land of great diversity of geographic and climatic conditions. It contains vast wetlands and big river systems, dense fertile forests, temperate grasslands in some parts of the highlands – even quite cold climates in the high mountains. The seas, lakes and rivers, swarm with the great range of fish, reptiles and amphib¬ians. The great range of different plants provide food and habitat for an enormous number of different types of animals, birds, reptiles and insects – many of them found nowhere else in the world. New species are still being discovered.
Only a couple of years ago, a scien¬tific expedition discovered a number of animals never before recorded by sci¬ence. Seventeen new species of frogs, including one with fangs, giant, woolly tree-dwelling rats, another vegetarian rat which may be the biggest in the world and several cuscus and tree-kangaroos not described before.
Sadly, some of our PNG species have already become extinct and will never be seen again, for example, the Big-Eared Bat. Many more are close to becoming extinct, giant bird-winged butterflies, several types of cuscus, the long-beaked echidna, the alpine wallaby, a couple of types of tree-kangaroo, several types of turtles, the list goes on and on of animals our grandchildren may never see.
There are three main reasons that some animal species are lost. First, they loose their habitat – forest animals cannot survive without trees and some animals are very particular and can only survive on special food requirements and if we remove that food, or if we pollute it, we may lose the animals.
Secondly, if we capture and kill too many of the animal or its eggs, it cannot replace its numbers. In the past, so many Birds of Paradise were hunted for their beautiful plumes that there was a real risk that many types of them would become extinct. They were protected and there numbers are slowly coming up again.
All over the world, people now re¬alise how important it is to care for all creatures and there are laws to protect animals and birds and their habitat. This is especially important in PNG where we have so many animals and birds not found anywhere else in the world. Un¬fortunately, the protection of animals and their habitats seems to be something which various governments have done nothing about except to pass a law. No-one actually enforces the law.
It is true that many people claim a right to hunt and kill some birds and animals because it is traditional for their people to eat the meat and wear the feathers and fur as decoration. If that is done in a tradi¬tional way, and not by way of trade and business, that’s something for the people to decide. But if it is done as a trade, to sell feathers of birds or meat of dugongs or turtles, then it should be stopped at once. We have seen what had happened to the Birds of Paradise in the past.
Finally, if animals are to be killed for traditional purposes, this should not be done unnecessarily cruelly.
Turtles, dugongs and pigs, in particular, if they are killed for traditional purposes, should be killed quickly and cleanly – no-one is “a big man” because he manages to bash to death an animal which is tied up.
The writer is the President of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cru¬elty to Animals of Papua New Guinea Inc