Water, Land and Natural Resources Minister Dr Xavier Jayakumar said he was considering bringing such a policy for Cabinet review. — Picture by Azinuddin Ghazali

KUALA LUMPUR, July 30 — The Water, Land and Natural Resources Ministry is considering a shoot-on-sight policy against wildlife poachers to protect Malayan tigers.

In a report by The Star Online, minister Dr Xavier Jayakumar said he was considering bringing such a policy for Cabinet review.

“It might sound a bit drastic but if you want to save Malayan tigers, we have to take drastic action as well.

“Such a policy, instituted in Nepal and Bhutan, has seen the number of tigers rising,” he said after attending the Global Tiger Day 2018 celebrations organised by World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Malaysia yesterday.

Dr Xavier also noted that a large number of poachers were foreigners from Indochina.

He also said ministry officials would be instructed to convene a meeting between the Armed Forces, the police, Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan), as well as Maybank Foundation and WWF Malaysia to come up with several strategies to tackle the poaching issue.

During the event, Perhilitan director-general Datuk Abdul Kadir Abu Hashim said a large part of the threat to tigers and Malaysian wildlife came from poaching snares.

“Today, we can remove one but one month later, these snares are back at the same place.

“They don’t discriminate and will catch anything, not just tigers,” Abdul Kadir said.

According to its statistics, more than 2,890 snares were destroyed in 479 operations conducted from 2014 up to this year.