ecologyasia.com
KUCHING: Sarawak has recorded a sharp increase in the population of wild swiftlets following the implementation of a sustainable management plan by the Forest Department for the harvesting of bird’s nest.
Researcher Dr Lim Chan Koon said the number of white-nest swiftlets in a cave in middle Baram, northern Sarawak, had shot up to 6,284 from 2,796 in 1997.
Dr Lim, who started the research on the breeding of swiftlets there five years ago, said that in another cave in Bukit Sarang, the swiftlet population had jumped to 660 from 396 in 2000.
Giving a talk on Sustainable Exploitation of a Natural Resource – Edible Bird’s Nest at the Malaysian Chemical Congress here, he said that under the first sustainable management plan introduced in 1998, no harvest of the product between January and April was allowed.
A second plan adopted two years later imposed a collection ban for any four continuous months, following which monthly harvests were permitted.
The four-month break allowed one complete breeding cycle of the swiftlets, including 30 days for nest-building, 25 days for incubation and between 45 and 49 days for the hatchings to grow until they leave the nest.
Dr Lim said uncontrolled and indiscriminate harvesting of bird’s nests over the years had caused a drastic decline in nest production and the wild swiftlets population in the Niah Cave.
“The swiftlet population there dropped from 1.7 million in 1935 to 200,000 in 1996 and 65,000 this year,” he added.
To arrest the sharp decline, the Forest Department imposed a four-month ban early this year on the collection of bird’s nest there.
The Niah Cave was once the state’s largest producer of black nests, with annual yields measured in tonnes.
Dr Lim said the government carried out two year-long comprehensive studies of the breeding of the black-nest and white-nest swiftlets in 1997 and 2000.
Of the five species of swiflets found in Sarawak, only three – black, white and glossy swiftlets – produce nests of commercial value.
Dr Lim said freshly collected white nests were worth between RM5,000 and RM7,000 per kilo in 1994.
He said commercial swiftlet farming in Sarawak had started where buildings with a cave-like environment were put up.
