Raptor! Raptor spotted! No, not the Spielberg kind of bits and bytes velociraptors from Jurassic Park , but real flesh and feather ones. Raptors are birds of prey large and powerful hunting birds that top many food-chains. They include hawks, eagles, falcons, vultures and owls.
The shouts came from avid bird-watchers gathered at Ilham Resort in Tanjung Tuan, Melaka, last Saturday. The birds were on their migration path from the south in New Zealand and Australia heading north to Siberia, China, Mongolia, Korea, Japan and India. They stop here for rest and food after a 26 nautical kilometres flight across the Straits of Malacca to Tanjung Tuan, the nearest point between Sumatra and Peninsular Malaysia.
This may be news to many Tanjung Tuan is recorded in the Raptor Watch Global Directory as one of the 380 active and potential raptor-migration watchsites.
Peninsular Malaysia lies on the east Asian flyway that connects north and eastern Asia with the Malay Archipelago, the Indonesian islands and Australasia. Flyways are the aerial pathways used by migrating birds, often over prominent geographic features such as coastlines or mountain ranges.
No one knows for sure where the birds head to once they reach Tanjung Tuan. They may be headed to the mountains range of Titiwangsa (which forms the main range of the peninsula) or just to the mountains and jungles in Melaka itself. The birds arriving from Sumatra fly low as they are tired after their long journey across the vast expanse of water.
Another reason for the birds to fly low is that they depend on hot air, perhaps like a hot air balloon. The birds rely on thermals or rising columns of hot air created by the sun heating the Earth's surface. Large birds like raptors need the rising hot air to lift and carry them as they are too heavy to flap their wings continuously over long distances or for long periods.
As these raptors cross the Straits of Malacca, they lose altitude as the thermals cool. Soon they have to flap their wings to stay above the water. They get very tired and desperately need the land-mass of Tanjung Tuan to rest and to rise safely again with the thermals generated there.
Leaving home
Migration is the periodical movement from one region to another for the purpose of feeding or breeding. Although many animals migrate, the most spectacular example of this natural phenomenon is the migration of birds.
The birds leave their homeland in the north during winter when conditions are harsh and food is scarce. Among the five commonly seen birds on this migratory path are species such as the Crested Honey Buzzard, Black Baza, Japanese Sparrowhawk, Chinese Goshawk and the Grey-Faced Buzzard.
Every year millions of birds make this dangerous journey across land and sea. In January these birds start to fly back to the north, gradually building up in numbers until early March.
Raptor migration occurs twice every year. Around October (during autumn in the northern hemisphere), the raptors leave their breeding grounds in eastern Asia to escape the cold winter months to Southeast Asia, making the sea-crossing at Tanjung Tuan to Indonesia, a distance of about 5,000km. In the beginning of March (spring), they make the hazardous return journey home to mate, nest and raise their young.
Spectacular sights
At about noon, bird-watchers gathered on Ilham beach were treated to spectacular sights of the low-gliding raptors, like the Honey Buzzard soaring in the sky exposing their orange-tinged wing flaps that span about one metre wide.
At the end of the day, 34 Japanese Sparrowhawk, 1,117 Crested Honey Buzzard, and 56 other raptors were counted, a total of 1,207 birds spotted. Bird-watchers say there is a marginal increase this year as the weather was better. It rained at this time last year in Tanjung Tuan.
Over a five-day period last year, 7,737 birds of varying species were spotted. Two years ago, 2,606 raptors were spotted over a three-day period.
In the 1960s there were 180,000 Japanese Sparrowhawks and 180,000 Honey Buzzards migrating through Peninsular Malaysia. Today, the numbers have declined to just several thousands.
Besides Tanjung Tuan, there are several raptor watchsites scattered across the region, where the birds of prey are observed and counted annually. They are in Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.
Need to conserve raptors
Because raptors exist at the top of many food chains, their populations are especially sensitive to alterations in the ecosystem. As a result of this, raptors are relatively good indicators of the health of the environment and food chain. For example, the decline of Brahminy Kite (a resident raptor in Malaysia) population in Indonesia is intricately linked to the disappearance of its mangrove habitat. The number of the Grey-faced Buzzard recorded in Japan is declining due to the decrease in their paddy-field habitat and conversion of wet paddy fields to dry ones.
Raptors currently face a variety of human-related threats, most notably the loss of natural habitat and consequent decline in their food. They are threatened by the widespread use of pesticides, sometimes shot by farmers who see them as at a threat to his livestock and are also trapped to be killed or sold.
In Malaysia, the greatest threats to the raptors are habitat loss and deteriorating quality of their habitats.
Ironically, an example of such threat was presented during the opening ceremony of Raptor Watch Week 2002, in which the Melaka State Executive Council member Hamdin Abdullah said in his speech that the state government was looking at approving yet another beach resort in Tanjung Tuan. This time it will affect the mangrove swamps in the area. Yet according to environmentalists concerned with the latest news, there are only pockets of mangrove swamps left in Tanjung Tuan.
Necessary sacrifices
Despite Hamdins assurance that the resort will feature chalets on stilts and minimal felling of trees, environmentalists remain unconvinced that the swamps will be able to survive the changes.
The area targeted for development is located around the base of the Tanjung Tuan Lighthouse. Hamdin, who is also Melaka state committee chairperson for tourism and culture, went on to say that in order to develop, there must be some sacrifices made .
Environmentalists, declining to be named fearing reprisal, told malaysiakini that perhaps Melaka is looking at going the Negeri Sembilan way, that is, They want a slice of the (tourism) cake. Currently, most beach resorts are on located within the Negeri Sembilan border. There are very few holiday resorts on the Melaka part of the coast.
These environmentalist argue that most of the high-rise holiday resorts are either empty or under-utilised.
It is pointless to build chalets on stilts under the pretext of saving the environment. Roads will still have to be built, sewage pipes installed and electricity cables laid. The swamps will have to be cleared to build the chalets. It makes no sense to build on stilts, say the environmentalists.
And by the way, where do the stilts come from?
The forest area of Tanjung Tuan is double gazetted . It is gazetted as a wildlife reserve as well as a forest reserve. Despite this, development is still taking place outside the protected area .
Tanjung Tuan is also home to the last remnants of struggling coral reefs in the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. More building will be the certain death of these coral reefs. Moreover, up to 70 percent of fish, crabs and prawns are ecologically dependent on the mangrove swamps.
The environmentalists say that every tree that is cut down will affect wildlife in the already fragile ecosystem of the cape.