Home || Book Review || Comment || Concerns || Concordance|| Heritage || News || People || Page 11

WHILE DOT.COM wonder kids are making the headlines our plodding businessmen are quietly making money the old fashioned way. It has to do with the study of birds; in particular swifts, and more specifically those two species that produce edible birds nests that are the very elixir life. 

Abandoned houses are carefully chosen. Then the birds are lured to their new homes by secret methods which are closely guarded trade secrets. But those in the know say that the birds respond to bird cries familiar to them, recorded on  tapes and played back through loudspeakers. Rival organisations have been seen on street corners trying to outdo their rivals with more attractive cries from their loud speakers. Thousands of birds fooled by their imitation kin nest in these new homes making a fortune for these modern farmers, mainly from Penang.  High tech devices extend to ultra modern laser sensor alarm systems, climate conditioners, infrared camera protection. 

But it seems that not all birds respond thoughtlessly to the tape recorder. Some prefer to choose the houses they like. They are called "hock hee" by the locals, a term which probably means that they are guided by Heaven. All is not plain sailing however. Some birds have a nasty habit of abandoning their eggs but skilled Indonesian workers quickly collect the abandoned eggs and smuggle them into other nests. 

The sudden appearance of thousands of these illegal immigrants to our shores is caused by the forest fires raging in Sumatra. Nibong Tebal, Parit Buntar and Sitiawan are the main benefactors of the new booming industry. No one has complained except for the citizens of Nibong Tebal who have complained that the birds will bring untold diseases to the town (see ISSUE No 2, CONCERNS) but it is suspected that rival traders are spreading these stories to discourage Nibong Tebal from rivalling Parit Buntar. The government has looked on with glee and has visions of a huge export market.  No doubt the birds will help the sagging economy rise above present levels

- S.L -
 

However  Dr Koh Hock Lye,  associate professor,  School of Mathematical Sciences, USM, says that such ponds are built mainly for storing excess storm water on site, generally to deal with localised problems. Flooding on the coastal plain involves a multitude of factors related to the entire Sungai Pinang sytem. Technical difficulties are  compounded by complexity induced by tidal flow on top of excessive rain water. 

It appears that proposals for the two ponds were a "total disregard for the tradition of scientific discipline and principles". Dr Hock Lye points out that the flood mitigation plan was fundamentally deficient as it was derived primarily from computations based on "rather simple and simplistic hydrologic models" He adds that  "a more reliable method is to dynamically route storm water mathematically by computing the actual physical processes involved through  the whole basin"