Disease crippling bearded pig population in East Malaysia

First the Penan – the people known to the outside world as the Borneo jungle nomads – started to come across dead wild boar in the forest.

Then, rotting carcasses. And now in the jungle, where they have hunted for the pigs for generations, there is no trace, no tracks, no wallows and no smell.

Wild boar is of great ecological, social and conservation importance in Borneo. It is a staple food for the Penan, by far their favourite meat.

Barking deer, mouse deer, birds and fish may be other sources of protein, but wild boar is the most important one.

During Covid-19, isolated by the lockdowns, they first encountered what they thought of as “Wild Boar Covid,” something killing the pigs.

Now across vast tracts of Borneo – the Malaysian regions of Sabah and Sarawak, the Indonesian state of Kalimantan and the Sultanate of Brunei - wild boar have vanished. No wild boar tracks are to be found, nor the distinctive stink that even a Westerner in the jungle can smell.

This is a catastrophe coming on top of the others that have befallen the Penan in recent decades.

Town-dwelling Penan elder, Nick Kelesau, who still has frequent contact with inland Penan, said it was during the pandemic that they first noticed a disease affecting the wild boar.

Referring to his jungle-living friends he says: “We [had] no idea. During Covid-19, when they walked in the forest, they looked and found a wild boar is just lying around dead.

“That’s quite difficult for them because they have to go hunting for the wild boar. For now, even if they want to find their footprints in the forest they can’t find them. They only can find deer and other animals.”

Asked if this was the situation in all Penan regions, Nick and his Penan friend, Lim Huan Khuan both responded in unison: “Everywhere. Everywhere. In upper Baram, [river]in middle Baram. All around.”

But it’s not just the Penan who are affected by the disease. Other rural natives who love pork just as much as the Penan, such as the Kelabit, Kenyah, Kayan and Iban have reported the mass deaths of pigs, including pigs farmed in the longhouse communities.

Cardiologist and paediatrician, Dr Philip Raja, president of the Kelabit community organisation said the loss of the animal is having an impact on all the inland people.

“Wild boar is the main source of food for the jungle-dwelling communities. Of course, you have fish and vegetables. You have other animals like deer, monkeys, birds and others.

“But wild boar is the most delicious as far as the taste is concerned for the locals. So, without them in the jungle, it creates a big impact.”

Phillip said before Covid-19 struck, many pigs reared in the towns were affected by the disease. The authorities culled a lot of pigs from Bintulu on the coast, to Sibu up the Rejang River to Miri, close to the Sarawak border with the Brunei Sultanate.

Initially, as the disease raged through the domestic pig population, the people in the mountainous inland Kelabit area of Bario still hunted wild boar.

Phillip said: “We thought the wild boar were not affected. We thought that this is a disease of the pigs in the town and the ones in the jungle are not affected.

“Then somehow, at the height of Covid-19, the locals realised that there was a dwindling number of these pigs in the jungle.”

If the impact is bad for the Kelabit, who live in rich cultivated valleys, it is a disaster for the Penan in the jungle.

So, what happened?

So, what was killing the wild boar? Not Covid-19 but African Swine Fever (ASF).

The contagion swept through the rural regions of Sarawak from around the headwaters of the huge Rejang and Baram rivers, to Bario in the mountains, to the world heritage listed Mulu National Park, with its huge caves, the home to hundreds of thousands of bats.

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, since August 2018, ASF has been sweeping through Asia and the Pacific and identified in 18 countries including China, Vietnam, Cambodia, South Korea, Laos, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, India and Malaysia.

The first ASF outbreaks in Malaysia were confirmed in February 2021 in the Borneo state of Sabah. It was later found in Sarawak and in the Malay Peninsula.

According to the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), ASF is a highly contagious viral disease of domestic and wild pigs, whose mortality rate can reach 100 percent.

It is responsible for massive losses in pig populations in a number of regions around the world. There is no effective vaccine to mitigate it as well.

The WOAH said the virus is highly resilient in the environment, meaning that it can survive on clothes, boots, wheels and other materials and can be spread through pork products.

The disease is believed to have entered Sarawak from Kalimantan. With no respect for borders, it has spread through the forests across the Malaysian states, Kalimantan and Brunei.

And the disappearance of the bearded pig (Sus barbatus) is not just a matter of food supply for people.

It may not be an orangutan, but it is just as much an essential part of the natural environment of Borneo as any animal.

Even before the ASF struck wild boar numbers were declining in many parts of its range due to deforestation, habitat fragmentation and overhunting.

As for the mammals, they can grow up to 120 kilogrammes or more. They feed on fallen fruit, seeds, roots, herbs and small animals.

Periodically, they formed large herds, swimming across rivers and climbing into the mountains.

There is some hope that a few wild boars are still out there. On April 2, I was told by a man working in the Jelalong palm oil plantation region, about sixty kilometres inland from the famous Niah caves, that he had been hunting on the previous day and had found fresh tracks of a large wild boar.

However, he added that the last time he and his friends had killed one was in 2021.

In the past, the pigs have been recorded on Borneo’s offshore islands and it is possible that the fever has not reached these islands.

Asked if the government is doing anything about the disappearance of the animals, Nick Kelesau and Hon both replied in the negative.

Lack media coverage

English daily, The Star, reported on Feb 15 that a number of districts across the state had been designated as swine flu-infected areas by government agencies.

The Department of Veterinary Services (DVS) was monitoring pig farms and pigs held by the remote longhouse communities.

The paper also reported that Sarawak’s Modernisation of Agriculture and Regional Development Minister Stephen Rundi had said that DVS had so far managed to contain the disease’s spread in urban regions.

But other media is not reporting on what is happening, or has happened, to the pigs in the jungle regions.

I later approached the Miri Resident and District Office, which administers the region that is the home to the eastern Penan, seeking to find the government’s position on what is being done about ASF and the disappearance of the wild boar.

I was immediately referred to Divisional Veterinary Services in Miri. There, an official told me that the ASF epidemic was a “secret matter”.

But I told him I was not seeking any secrets, just the government’s official response as to what it was doing about the epidemic.

And his reply - I should write a letter seeking a response. Expecting this, I immediately handed him a letter with my questions and contact details.

To date, I did not receive any response to the letter. - Mkini

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Paul Malone is the author of “The Peaceful People, The Penan and their Fight for the Forest” and “Kill the Major”, the true story of the most successful Allied guerrilla in Borneo.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.