Natural heritage under threat of extinction saved by hobbyists

Natural heritage under threat of extinction saved by hobbyists

Source: Straits Times

3/22/2022

Credit: NSTP/ courtesy of Dr Zahar Azuar Zakaria

MUAR: Six friends could have easily earned more than RM30,000 each, but their love of nature saw them forgo monetary profit and return their homebred endangered Betta Persephone specimens to the wild.

Betta Persephone is listed under the IUCN red list and is endemic to a small pocket of peat swamp in east Johor.

Under the tutelage of citizen scientist Mohd Ilham Norhakim Lokman, the six friends managed to save a few specimens in its natural habitat, which is an oil palm plantation.

The friends come from different backgrounds – a practising doctor, an engineer, a fishmonger, a matriculation student and an aquarium fish trader.

Together with Ilham Norhakim, they ventured into a project funded using their savings with no guarantee that the tank raised fry of the Betta Persephone would survive.
"It was a trial with nNatural heritage under threat of extinction saved by hobbyistso high hopes on the fish surviving outside its habitat. The water perimeter needs to be precise at ph3.6," Ilham Norhakim told the New Straits Times.

"We need to save this critically endangered species which can only be found in one location in the world and it is in Johor. Sadly, its habitat is now gone.

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