These lizards used to be commonly seen in Ubin. When startled, they climb up to the nearest tree. Their natural predators are dogs so make sure your pets are leashed.
These lizards are not prolific breeders, their numbers declining, being easily trapped by poachers, who include “snake head biters” commandos who like to show their prowess biting off heads of live snakes.
If you are a student and being entertained by one, remember that wild animals are protected in Ubin. Tell your instructor that you have already seen how its done and set the creature free instead of eating it. There is cautionary story of a SAF army commando who is a Ubin regular. Happens about 14 years ago. He subsequently died of blood poisoning after drinking wild reptiles blood. Monitor lizards are scavengers and carrion eaters. They swim about eating dead carcasses and are known to burrow into freshly dug graves and eating the dead bodies, which are traditionally wrapped in shrouds only and buried in shallow depths. Malaysians regard them as filthy animals. Its a bad idea to catch wild ones for pets and endanger your family members.
Jungle survival course training in Pulau Ubin.
Jungle survival training are usually conducted by armed forces for individuals who are selected for their top physical condition and mental endurance, in order to conduct dangerous missions, learning to escape and avoid capture. They are not being taught to ordinary soldiers for a number of reasons.For rainforest people who spend their entire lives in the jungle, finding enough food is a big challenge. The scarcity of animals on the forest floor resulted in very little meat in their diet. Yet many of such survival courses including TV reality like Man vs. Wild teaches the fun part of trapping of small animals for food. To survive in jungles is a perilous undertaking as no jungles around the world are the same. There are poisonous plants, snakes, scorpions, centipedes, mosquitoes that brings malaria and dengue, parasitic worms, bacteria causing dysentery or leptospirosis from rat urine which causes organ failures. It takes an entire lifetime, with typical life expectancy of less than 50 years for forest people to survive in their environment. Such 3 days courses create false sense of confidence that leads to tragedies and deaths.
Parents should consider carefully before allowing their children to go for exotic courses for the sake of gaining precious extracurricular and leadership points in the hope of gaining admissions to prestigious institutions, undergoing 3 days of gruel-ling programs which young bodies and minds are not conditioned for as in this tragic story which 2 schoolgirls drowned in Pulau Ubin more than 10 years ago.
Singapore CDC, Nparks, school principals please take note. Here is an actual experience related by a trainee while in Ubin.
Anyway monitor lizar do taste good. confrim nicer than chicken esp those farm bred ones we eat nowadays. Choose the ~0.5m long ones. Smack bugger on the head until tongue drop out sideways… hang on fence or pole, slit the skin from throat down to tail with a razor…and just peel it off like piece of clothing until the claw area and chop if off. All their fats are concentrated in one area at the belly (yellow lump). Just pull it off and the rest are all lean meat. Serious! If you are in the jungle and there is no cooking oil, just melt this fat back and stir fry the chopped up lean meat from the rest of the body. Throw away the head and neck. Jungle cooking, make do with what u can find lor..pandan leaves, chilli or even small fruits. Above was really what me and some buddies did during jungle survival @ Ubin many moons ago.
Update: 7 Sept 2010.
Since the post was put up this site got hits from people searching for information on buying clouded monitor lizards as pets or as parts (gallbladder). It is illegal in Singapore to buy or trade in exotic snakes and reptiles. All AVA need is to catch the traders who will turn in their customers for lighter sentencing.
