13th April, 2008: Tycoons buying endangered animals as 'status symbols'

Tycoons buying endangered animals as 'status symbols'
MIRI: Powerful towkays in Sarawak cities are paying good money to native trappers to capture endangered animals to put on display in their homes as “status symbols.�?

Their demand has resulted in an increasingly active black market in exotic wildlife in certain parts of Sarawak, according to information received by environmental-conservation and native rights group Borneo Resources Institute.
Source

Laws are okay, but enforcement is poor, says UNDP
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has found Sarawak to be “extremely weak�? in enforcing laws against cruelty to animals and endangered wildlife.

The laws drawn up by the state government were good but there was something very wrong with the enforcement, said UNDP’s expert in environmental conservation in Sarawak, Dr Alexander Sayok.
Source

The above news is the result of these ones:

Caged sunbear dies

Officers raid sunbear farm, come up empty.

Yes, you incompetent enforcement. You just have to wait 6 months and for the bear to die before taking action, don't you? And conveniently say that the bears mysteriously disappear.

Miri might be a 'rich' place currently, but probably a more suitable phrase would be 'the city of the rich & the eccentric'.

Forum discussion on the matter.