What do rats, bats and pigeons have in common?
They all spread disease!
One of the biggest killers is the common street vermin – rats which in the last century were responsible for the killing of millions of human beings through bubonic plaque.
Most infamous of all was the Black Death, a medieval pandemic that swept through Asia and Europe. It reached Europe in the late 1340s, killing an estimated 25 million people or a third of the European population.
However, the most common disease in South Asia including Malaysia is the rat disease called leptospirosis which has killed thousands over the last 50 years.
Even in rural Sarawak where farmers, rats and rice-barn are synonymous, there are stories of “rat disease” epidemics that killed hundreds in the pre-War days.
Even today, travellers to India especially and South East Asia in general, who face the risk of leptospirosis are often reminded to take several steps to prevent contracting the disease; avoid contact with water or soil that may be contaminated with animal urine.
And also the advice is not to wade, swim in, or swallow floodwaters or water from lakes, rivers, or swamps.
But how can an adventurous tourist or environmentalist feel happy if he cannot explore our often soggy Malaysian jungle or cannot sample local food at our many open air markets, some of them rodent infested?
Since 2010 cases of leptospirosis in Malaysia have continued to rise – there were 2,268 cases in 2011, 3,665 in 2012 and 4,457 in 2013. By 2015 it had quadrupled to 8,291 cases.
Sabah has recorded the third highest number of leptospirosis cases in the country after Selangor and Kelantan. Since last year, there have been 555 cases in Sabah with three deaths while Sarawak has also had its fair share of deaths.
The disease is caused by the bacterium Yersinia Pestis that circulates among rodents continue to live in great numbers and density.
It’s a vicious cycle; you remove the scavenging stray dogs who feed on the waste food that falls off the table at open air eating places, and the rodents will have more than enough food to feed their large families.
So, who do we remove first? Cats which eat disease spreading rats? Or the millions of bats of Mulu Caves which like rats, can also spread rabies?
Somebody suggested we go for the birds! And so I was quite surprised when passing Gambier Road’s ‘Pigeon Park’ last week, devoid of its 200-odd human-loving birds.
‘Pigeon Park’ has been a popular place for the local folk and their children who have been feeding the birds for the past decade.
It is an idyllic place because it is next to the newly-built Floating Mosque on the Sarawak River, which is due to be open early next year.
If the birds thought they could seek protection from mankind, they were wrong. Somehow, someone or some people had put the fear of God into these animals by letting off firecrackers, so the rumour goes.
There has been a long-drawn ‘love-hate’ between man and animal all over the world. Remember the time when Port Klang was swarming with thousands of scavenger crows that fed on anything – from food in rubbish bins to even nestlings. So the council went on a crow-hunt killing thousands.
In Kuching it is very interesting to note that instead of declaring an all-out war against the millions of rats that inhabit the towns and cities of Sarawak, it has been suggested we go for the birds, namely the pigeons, which is also a disease carrier; it is true that one can contract meningitis through pigeon droppings.
But one can also contract a variety of diseases if bitten by another dangerous vector, mosquitos, one of the biggest killers in this part of the world that once took hundreds of lives of natives through malaria.
In fact we live in a dangerous world; Malaria kills one child every 30 seconds (or about 3,000 children every 24 hours) and more than a million people each year world-wide.
Another killer lurking in our backyard and streets is dengue haemorrhagic fever which fortunately kills 25,000 people annually and kudos to Sarawak which recorded only one death this year!
But in England pigeons are probably one of the most loved birds because they are a tourist-attraction bringing in great revenue to London – people visiting the city often make a stop at Trafalgar Square to feed the famous pigeons.
According to travel writer Tim Moore, pigeons began flocking to Trafalgar Square long before the buildings were completed in 1844. Later birdfeed sellers established themselves on the square, selling bags of seeds, making Trafalgar Square popular.
But even London was faced with a similar dilemma of how to deal with the burgeoning problem of hundreds of pigeons using the city centre as its playground, feeding place and toilet.
According to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, pigeons are quite comfortable around people, so are probably the easiest wild creatures to approach. In many cases a pigeon may be the only wild bird that a child, or adult for that matter, might touch in their lifetime.
But 20 years ago, the Mayor of London described the thousands of pigeons that flocked around Nelson’s Column as ‘rats with wings’ and a health hazard and had to go.
But animal activists such as Save the Trafalgar Square Pigeons (also known as STTSP) were opposed to the plan to move the birds out of Trafalgar Square.
They argued that it was cruel because the pigeons had to find alternative sources of food and over the long-term could die of starvation.
On the other hand, the mayor claimed that the reduction in the number of birds in the square was to create a “more pleasant environment”.
He said that in the run up to the ban, Trafalgar Square had undergone a £25 million facelift and £140,000 worth of damage had been caused to the Nelson Column a result of bird droppings.
If that is the case, then the DBKU may have to find out if Gambier Road pigeon droppings have destroyed one of our iconic buildings – the premises of the adjacent Old Courthouse?
And so the issue of man verses nature goes and our councils have to decide on what to do with the 200-odd Gambier Road pigeons, if they have not left Kuching for good.
Today we may have a beautiful green Kuching but, who knows, one day we may be a city with no strays or cats, no birds or bees; a clean and hygienic city surrounded by a concrete façade of high-rise buildings with a community who may have lost the capacity to love God’s creatures!
