SEREMBAN: The High Court here has dismissed a suit filed by a non-governmental organisation and an individual against the Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) over the alleged culling of dusky leaf monkeys in Port Dickson.
In dismissing the suit, Judicial Commissioner Mohamad Haldar Abd Aziz ruled that the plaintiffs had failed to prove their case on the balance of probabilities.
In his decision, delivered via Zoom, he also awarded the defendants RM10,000 in costs.
The suit was filed in July 2021 by Nurul Azreen Sultan, a resident of Taman Raja Zainal in Port Dickson, where the monkeys were allegedly shot and killed, and the wildlife rights NGO Hak Asasi Hidupan Liar Malaysia (Hidup). The plaintiffs claimed that more than 20 adult and baby dusky leaf monkeys were shot dead during an operation conducted by the department around 10am on May 19 of the same year.
Their main contention was that Perhilitan's role is to protect wildlife and that the department should not have culled the endangered animals.
They named Perhilitan personnel Ismail Abdullah, 39, Amirul Faries Idris, 34, and Mohd Saiful Asnawi Abdul Mutalib, 27, along with the director-general of the department and the Energy and Natural Resources Minister, as defendants.
In their suit, they also claimed it is common knowledge that dusky leaf monkeys are extremely shy primates and that the defendants wrongly concluded that they posed a threat to humans.
The plaintiffs argued that the department had no grounds to cull the animals, which are listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List and protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, to which Malaysia is a signatory.
By culling the "totally protected wildlife", the plaintiffs claimed, the defendants violated Section 86(1)(f) of the Wildlife Conservation Act 2010, which makes it an offence to willfully cause any unnecessary suffering, pain, or discomfort to any wildlife. Offenders can be fined up to RM50,000, jailed for a term not exceeding one year, or both.
Following the incident, Perhilitan said that it was forced to cull seven adult dusky leaf monkeys, or lotong, as the animals had caused serious injuries to humans on three occasions earlier that year. It claimed all seven monkeys were aggressive and had to be put down after attempts to trap or relocate them failed.
Perhilitan asserted that its decision to cull was in accordance with provisions under the Wildlife Protection Act, which permits the removal of any wildlife that poses a threat to humans or property.
When contacted, lawyer Rajesh Nagarajan, who represented the plaintiffs, said they were still in the dark about the reasons behind the dismissal of their claim.
"We have been instructed by our clients to request the grounds of judgment so that we can understand the court’s reasoning," said Rajesh, who is also the founder of Lawyers for Animal Rights.
The defendants were represented by senior federal counsel Amalina Zainal Mokhtar and Mohamad Shafiq Mohd Sazalli.
