Poachers

[Orcishwarrior]

I have decided to write this comment to express my anger and frustration to what i have seen from my past few trekking trips to a few undisclosed locations.

As a long time nature enthusiast i have had countless trips for the past 13 years to the last few remaining nature strongholds in this tiny island of Singapore. All the walking never seem to wear me down at all simply because i am always looking forward to appreciate the habitat of native faunas in our local streams. In 2010 this activity of mine grind to a halt as i was posted oversea for nearly 3 years.

Lately i returned back home and instantly i decided to resume my trekking. As usually, the trips are full of anticipation and certainly hope the population of naive fishes will flourish. However, this anticipation simply vanish giving rise to anger when i saw two young chaps and a middle age man from a distance attempting to scoop some fishes from the stream and ponds. When i close in to investigate, it confirmed my suspicion when i saw them with 3 regular aquarium nets and two cookies bottles. Despite their obvious action, i decided to engage a conversation with them about their activities by starting off with a question on their purpose of catching these fishes, i was hoping these specimens are meant for research but it didn't turn out to be when they started getting chatty over their activity. During the conversation, i asked them about how they got to know about the location which is supposedly secluded and the answer wasn't surprising but i was furious when they revealed to me about some postings made in forum and the thread starter told them that they can harvest nice specimens instead of encouraging them to appreciate what is left for us. The chat ends up with me verbally advising them not to proceed further and made report to the National Park Board to step up their patrol on these undisclosed locations.

With this i would like to urge fellow aquarium hobbyist enjoy this hobby responsibly and moderators to do their part in ensuring forums will not become a source for irresponsible hobbyists.

[exotic_idiot]

Bro don't be mad... the most we can do is step up more trekking tour let more people aware of our last beautiful environment.
So that public will be educated.

[Orcishwarrior]

Its a pity that education don't seem to be useful for many hobbyists and i can fully understand why our government has to enforce hefty fine and harsh punishment. Since persuasion is a failed attempt, then bitter medicine is the best treatment. They did it well for MacRitchie Reservoir and Bukit timah, i think they should just up the frequency of patrol for these areas.

I am sure many veterans share the same sentiment. Many of us keep these locations away from the public with a common objective which is to prevent people from exploiting. I think there is a limit to what can be shared and what cannot be. if these locations are shared in some "Love the nature" forum, i guess its an encouragement. Here is like.. hey cheap wild stuff... like lets go for it kind of mentality.

[BFG]

Obviously, the people you've met are uneducated, kiasu mentality ( take it as it is free and available ) and do not care for what their action might cause. My suggestion to the thread starter is should he/she encounter any thread on any forum is to try dissuade the poster from revealing such location. Do not go head to head with such person as you are doing it alone and your safety is paramount in such secluded area. 3 persons against 1 person words will put you in at a disadvantage.

[eddy planer]

I do understand your anger and frustration that what you see weren't very pleasant to you as being a long-time nature enthusiast. You remind me of one of our AQ brother Micheal Lo from Sarawak, a Conservation Ecologist who often spends almost his lifetime in the Sarawak jungle protecting and restoring bio diversity and ecosystems. He has seen many of the world rarest florae like orchids, crypts and so on, world's rarest and endangered species like Orang Utans and rare fishes are under threat of disappearing forever to extinction due to facilitate a large-scale logging. Doesn't he feel upset? Yes! His favorite paradise with full of rare orchids and crypts has been razed by bulldozers to flat empty clay brown ground.

However, I do understand Singapore poachers feel, too. I'm not talking the behalf of them, but I am trying to understand the concern why they did such a way, too. We're Singaporean didn't have a chance to learn about bio diversity and ecosystems, but we only learn how to survive the fast and hard lifestyle and how to get back our CPF when we retire, oops! The solution is we learned in this AQ to appreciate fish-keeping, planted tank, vivarium/paludarium and even some of us keeping some Tree Frogs to learn and out grown our curiosities and relief stress from Singapore's harsh lifestyle. With the hawk-eyes, AVA is watching us, too to ensure we aren't going to break any law by keeping banned critters we dream to foster. The problem is not the poachers is how we can't have this and that in any IFS in Singapore or getting them across the causeway that leads some of us to retort this happening.I do sometimes understand the situation as I had seen many enthusiasts fostering many wilds that beyond my imagination in Indonesia , Malaysia, Thailand and all over the world without any AVA restriction. Look at other countries bio diversity are very well maintain and order, reason is most of them grew up from there. That's life..

[exotic_idiot]

MacRitchie Reservoir and Bukit timah there's a lot of signs that says no fishing or catching fish...
That's why nobody dare try it...