I might be agreeable to the lifting of ban on the capture and export of macaques in Peninsular Malaysia. The lift of the ban — which was set in place in 1984 to combat the declining of the primate population — was announced by the Minister Azmi Khalid just last month:
PUTRAJAYA, Aug 17 (Bernama) — Malaysia has lifted the ban on the export of long-tailed macaques, better known as long-tailed monkeys, in an effort to reduce the population of these primates in urban areas, Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid announced Friday. [Ministry Lifts Ban On Export Of Monkeys. Bernama. August 17 2007]
But I have a few questions and one of them concerns this:
He said the ministry had done a non-detrimental study before lifting the ban and it had been decided that only monkeys in urban areas be caught and exported. [Ministry Lifts Ban On Export Of Monkeys. Bernama. August 17 2007]
How does the authority plan to immediately ascertain the origin of any caged macaques at the gates of Peninsular Malaysia?
It seems that the ministry might face a problem known in economics as asymmetric information.
One solution to this problem is to randomly tag members of the macaque community with passive RFID, urban and wild. Done properly, a simple act of sampling will reasonably solve the problem. I will leave the question on the size of the tagging operation to real statisticians. My statistics skill is deteriorating after being out of college for too long.
One reply on “[1350] Of macaques pose a question on asymmetric information”
Hello Hafiz,
Good points. Enforcement of this issue will be beyond the mechanisms that Perhilitan has in place at the moment. My friends in the wildlife trade business tell me that the current YB Minister has struck a back-handed deal with a former DG and a trader from Sabah to export 60,000 monkeys a year.
TW