Muar a ‘swiftlet farm’

TAM YENG SIANG,
Petaling Jaya.

I AM a Muarian, and am very proud of it. There is nothing that I like to do better than to return to the town occasionally to visit my siblings and to eat some of the famous otak-otak or the ikan assam pedas while in town.


Recently, I took my wife for a leisurely walk in the town centre, around Jalan Ali, Jalan Abdullah, Jalan Meriam and Jalan Yahya. All over town, we could see pedlars selling the ubiquitous otak-otak, and many shops carried the famous Muar coffee brands. It brought back pleasant memories ... good for the soul.

However, against the backdrop of vehicle noises, we could hear an incessant twittering, and to my horror, I suddenly realised that Muar town, has through the years, been turned into a noisy swiftlet breeding town.

Wherever one turns, one can see double storey shophouses with closed darkened windows and hear twitter emanating from within. Some of these enclosed structures are even built on top of the double-storey shops.


What is even more amazing is that the residents in the shops surrounding the many “swiflet farms” seem oblivious to the noise, and also to the health hazards this business may pose.

One more fact that stood out in the swiftlet business in Muar is that they seem to be concentrated only in the town areas, or areas where there are a collection of shops.

Driving just out of town, we could see more breeding structures in places where there were shops being built.

In fact, we noticed that some new shops had already been converted into swiftlet homes.

I am not anti-business, and I am glad my fellow Muarians have found a way to earn some lucrative income. But have the swiftlet homes been approved according to the terms and guidelines issued by the Government, where, if I have not read incorrectly, the homes should be built in agricultural areas, and should be some distance from residential areas?

I love my town, please do not let it be degraded by unscrupulous or worse, corrupt, practices.