Roaring time in support of tigers

-The Star- These tigers were actually people, both young and old, who had their faces painted in tiger stripes in support of the WWF TX2 Double or Nothing tiger conservation campaign.Leading the pack were Selangor Environment Committee chairman Elizabeth Wong and WWF Malaysia executive director and CEO Datuk Dr Dionysus Sharma who were among the first ones to get their faces painted to mark the launch of the campaign.

It did not seem like the organisers would achieve their intended target of 1,000 people as only about 300 had signed up by 1pm.

However, the response was overwhelming after the face-painting restarted after a two-hour break at 3pm.

WWF Malaysia senior executive Subashni Bahsu said they had successfully painted 1,016 people by the time they closed at 6.30pm.

She said they were touched by the response showed by the people and felt they were successful in achieving their objectives.

“It will get into the Malaysia Book of Records as the biggest face-painting event,” she said.

Subashni added that 40 volunteers were stationed at 20 painting stations to carry out the task of painting the faces.

She said the individual photographs of the participants were also taken before they were asked to stick them up on a wall.

Sharma said he was confident that their target of doubling up the Malayan tiger population from 500 to 1,000 was a realistic goal.

He said getting the tigers to multiply was not a difficult task but they needed to protected from poachers and traffickers.

“The government has to do everything possible to protect them including conservation of the forest.

“They have to come down hard on the poachers and traffickers using the laws that are available,’’ he said, adding that the Malayan tigers were a unique species and could not be found anywhere else in the world.

Wong said the state government would be playing a role to support the WWF’s goal.

By taking the necessary measures, she said there was a possibility for tigers to live in the state’s forest.

“Records show that the last tiger was sighted in Selangor some 30 years ago but it does not mean that we do not have tigers in our forests,” she said.