ASIA / PACIFIC
August 2, 2021
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 3
Don’t look up! Bangkok’s slitherers keep snake catchers busy
BANGKOK (AP) — Bangkok parkgoers
looking
for
relief
from
renewed
coronavirus restrictions got a slithering
surprise in July when a python as long as
two of the Thai capital’s ubiquitous
motorbikes was spotted in one of the city’s
most popular green spaces.
The reticulated python was only the
latest big serpent to turn up in the dense
center of Bangkok, where urban sprawl
eating into natural habitats has been
blamed for a rise in snake sightings in
recent years.
This one was found in Benjasiri Park,
which is flanked by towering hotels,
apartment
buildings,
and
several
high-end shopping malls, that was largely
off limits due to restrictions put in place to
stem a surge in virus cases. The curbs
shuttered non-essential businesses and
limited restaurants to takeout only,
leaving parks among the few public places
still open.
As parents pushed strollers and joggers
rounded a nearby running path,
firefighters called in to corral the snake
started by trying to capture it with a
ladder from the ground up.
PERSISTENT PYTHON. A firefighter tries to
capture a python in Benjasiri Park in Bangkok, Thai-
land, on July 15, 2021. Bangkok parkgoers looking
for relief from renewed coronavirus restrictions got a
slithering surprise when a python as long as two of the
Thai capital’s ubiquitous motorbikes was spotted in the
popular green space. Firefighter Somchai Yoosabai
said the snake weighed about 77 pounds. (AP Photo/
Adam Schreck)
The python plotted its escape by heading
out on a limb, bound for a building on the
edge of the park that houses the World
Fellowship of Buddhists.
Other firefighters were waiting for it on
the roof of the building. While one used a
stick to grab the python by the neck,
another man tried to cut the branch it was
on. They soon coaxed it into a sack, tied up
the bag, and carried it away.
Firefighter Somchai Yoosabai said the
snake measured 11.5 feet long and
weighed about 77 pounds.
Bangkok firefighters typically get
thousands of snake-removal calls each
year. Yoosabai said his department alone
has caught a snake or two a day during the
current rainy season, mostly in
neighborhoods or houses with pets.
As coronavirus cases rise, so do the
risks.
“If any houses ... have COVID-19 cases,
we have to go to catch the snakes anyway,”
he said. “Plus, wherever we go to catch a
snake, the crowd is always there. We
cannot avoid that.”
Reticulated
pythons
are
found
throughout Southeast Asia, and are some
of the largest snakes in the world. They
hunt by coiling their body around their
prey, typically small mammals and birds,
though they have been known to
occasionally attack humans.
Associated Press writer Chalida Ekvittayavechnukul
contributed to this report.
Images show Chinese ship waste endangering reefs
By Jim Gomez
The Associated Press
ANILA, The Philippines —
Swarms of Chinese vessels have
dumped human waste and
wastewater for years in a disputed area of
the South China Sea, causing algae blooms
that have damaged coral reefs and
threatened fish in an unfolding
catastrophe, a U.S.-based expert said last
month.
Satellite images over the last five years
show how human waste, sewage, and
wastewater have accumulated and caused
algae in a cluster of reefs in the Spratlys
region where hundreds of Chinese fishing
ships have anchored in batches, said Liz
Derr, who heads Simularity Inc., a
software company creating artificial
intelligence technologies for satellite
imagery analysis.
At least 236 ships were spotted in the
atoll, internationally known as Union
Banks, on June 17 alone, she said at a
Philippine online news forum on China’s
actions in the South China Sea, which
Beijing has claimed virtually in its
entirety.
“When the ships don’t move, the poop
piles up,” Derr said. “The hundreds of
ships that are anchored in the Spratlys are
dumping raw sewage onto the reefs they
are occupying.”
Chinese officials did not immediately
react to Derr’s assessment of the
environmental damage, but have said in
the past that they have taken steps to
protect the fisheries stock and the
environment in the South China Sea.
Aside from the Chinese, Vietnamese forces
have also occupied some coral outcrops in
Union Banks, which is also claimed by the
Philippines, although it has no presence in
the vast atoll.
Department of Foreign Affairs assistant
secretary Eduardo Menez in Manila said
the findings would have to be assessed and
validated by Philippine authorities before
a decision on whether to lodge a protest
against China could be made.
“This is a catastrophe of epic proportions
and we are close to the point of no return,”
Derr said.
She warned that schools of fish,
including migratory tuna, breed in the
reefs that are being damaged and could
M
cause fish stocks to considerably decline in
an offshore area that is a key regional food
source.
Separately, China’s military said it
chased a U.S. warship out of another
disputed area of the South China Sea in
mid-July after Washington warned an
attack on the Philippines might activate a
mutual defense treaty.
Beijing then affirmed its claims to
portions of the sea that also are claimed by
Southeast Asia governments. It rejected
the Biden administration’s declaration of
support for a 2016 international tribunal
ruling in favor of the Philippines that
threw out most of them.
China is increasingly assertive about
pressing its territorial claims, which are
fuelling tension with neighbors including
Japan, India, Vietnam, and the
Philippines.
China’s People’s Liberation Army said it
sent ships and planes after the U.S.S.
Benfold entered waters claimed by Beijing
around the Paracel Islands.
In March, Philippine authorities spotted
more than 200 Chinese fishing vessels at
Whitsun Reef, in the northeastern
periphery of Union Banks, and demanded
that China withdraw them from the area.
China ignored the demand for weeks,
while continuing to assert the reef is its
own territory.
The Philippines argued that Whitsun
Reef lies well within an internationally
recognized stretch of waters where it has
exclusive rights to exploit fisheries, oil,
gas, and other sea resources. It cited the
international tribunal’s 2016 ruling that
invalidated China’s vast claims to the
waterway on historical grounds and
unanimously upheld the Philippines’
sovereign rights to the so-called exclusive
economic zone.
A few hundred protesters held a noisy
rally last month in front of the Chinese
Consulate in Manila to mark the fifth
anniversary of the ruling, which China
ignored and continues to defy. The
protesters lashed out at Philippine
President Rodrigo Duterte, who has
nurtured closer ties with Beijing, for
refusing to aggressively demand that
China comply with the landmark ruling.
Associated Press journalists Joeal Calupitan
and Aaron Favila contributed to this report.
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REEF REFUSE. A fisherman throws
his net beside the half-submerged M/V
Palawan Pearl after it collided with a
Cyprus-flagged BKM 104 dredger in
Manila Bay, the Philippines, on July 8,
2021. The Philippine cargo vessel and
the dredger collided in the bay anchor-
age area, resulting in no injuries but
causing the cargo vessel to list and lie
half-submerged in the busy waters.
Satellite images over the last five years
show how human waste, sewage, and
wastewater have accumulated and
caused algae in a cluster of reefs in the
Spratlys region. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
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