AMRITA KAUR
Not many children know what they
want to be when they grow up. But from
young Mr Subaraj Rajathurai was cer-
tain about what he wanted to pursue for
the rest of his life.
As a child, he enjoyed making scrap-
books with pictures of animals and was
familiar with conservation icons.
He read books on nature and wildlife
by British naturalist Gerald Durrell and
watched documentaries by French con-
servationist Jacques Cousteau and
British broadcaster and naturalist David
Attenborough.
It was the closest experience he had
to being in the wilderness.
“That was my world because I didn’t
have opportunities to explore nature
like children do now,” said the 54-year-
old.
Though Mr Rajathurai was born with
a keen interest in wildlife and nature, he
did not have it easy coming from a con-
servative household. His parents and
two siblings had little interest in those ar-
eas except for the occasional trips to the
zoo.
“I had to hear a lot from my family
members and relatives that I was wast-
ing my time; because in my generation,
children were brought up to be doctors,
lawyers or engineers,” he said
But he stubbornly stuck to his pas-
sion and dreams. He went to Tanjong Ka-
tong Technical School and graduated
with an O level certificate before going
to a pre-university institution, Stamford
College.
However, his career in zoology
ended prematurely when he was asked
to dissect a frog. “I couldn’t do it. I can-
not even bring myself to step on an ant,
so I had to find a different path,” said
Mr Rajathurai.
He also decided that he did not want
to work with captive animals, so a job in
the zoo or bird park was out of the ques-
tion. After he dropped out of college, he
went to do his National Service (NS).
For five years after NS, he wandered in
areas such as Bukit Timah Nature Re-
serve and Pulau Ubin learning about
flora and fauna.
He would take notes, go to the library
and spend afternoons researching on
what he found. “That created the founda-
tion I operated from,” said the self-
taught naturalist. In 1988, he took a
small group to a nature reserve under
the Nature Society (Singapore) and
found the experience to be “very re-
warding”. “You get to show people what
you love and they share that love. It’s re-
ally enjoyable watching them get ex-
cited, so I decided that would be some-
thing I’d like to do,” he said.
It provided the impetus for him to
take up a six-month course at the Singa-
pore Tourism Board to get a tour guide’s
licence. “I learnt everything about Singa-
pore but nature,” he said with a laugh.
“You have to go through it if you
want to be a guide, so I learnt everything
about the country from its history to its
culture. The idea of getting that licence
was to start doing general nature tours
for the public, schools and tourists.”
He was employed at the age of 25 as a
freelance nature guide and became Sin-
gapore’s first professional tourist guide
specialising in eco-tourism.
“The same people who thought I
wouldn’t amount to anything much
were then asking me to take them on
tours,” he recalled. His family members
have also become nature enthusiasts.
Since then, Mr Rajathurai has de-
signed and run over 50 different tours in
Singapore. The tours help people ex-
plore and understand nature and
wildlife.
“It can range from someone coming
from overseas wanting to see a particu-
lar type of bird to someone who is just cu-
rious as to what a rainforest would feel
like,” said Mr Rajathurai, who has often
been referred to as the king of the jun-
gle.
On his trips into the wilderness, he
typically dons a polo tee and loose cargo
pants and wears a bandana from his
100-piece collection to protect his head
from the heat.
To formalise his work, he founded
Strix Wildlife Consultancy in 1998,
which does research, wildlife surveys,
educational outreach, eco-tours and
other work in conservation.
The nature and wildlife expert is
booked one to three months ahead for
tours and conducts them about two to
five times a week while juggling his con-
sultancy projects.
Mr Rajathurai also started an organi-
sation under the Nature Society (Singa-
pore) called the Vertebrae Study Group
in 1993. The voluntary group studies all
the animals in Singapore, collects data
from surveys it conducts and shares it
with national parks and universities
here.
“Today we have a better idea of what
animals are around, where they are and
how many there are because of the work
the group has done,” he said.
Many of Singapore’s nature reserves
also exist due to the efforts of Mr Ra-
jathurai.
The veteran wildlife consultant
helped to work on a proposal to save
bird haven Sungei Buloh, which had
been slated for redevelopment. The pro-
posal was submitted to the Government
in 1987. The wetland officially opened
in 1993 as the Sungei Buloh Nature Park
and was eventually gazetted as a nature
reserve.
Mr Rajathurai was also one of those
who fought against a proposed golf
course at Lower Pierce Reservoir.
He was involved in a study of the im-
pact it would have on the environment
and highlighted the flora and fauna that
would be affected by the development.
“We managed to get that plan
shelved and now the reservoir is still
around with the boardwalk. People en-
joy it today,” said Mr Rajathurai. “I
fought against it out of passion because I
felt it was the right thing to do. There is a
sense of pride when I look back.”
More recently, he was in the news for
threatening to pull out of environmental
impact discussions with the developer
of the Mandai nature precinct if he was
made to sign a non-disclosure agree-
ment barring him from speaking pub-
licly.
Mr Rajathurai said this following a
spate of roadkills involving at least five
native mammals in the vicinity of the
work site, as secondary forests in the
area are being cleared to make way for
two new wildlife parks.
“That’s unacceptable. In all my
projects there have been zero roadkills,
so how can you not be able to protect the
animals when you develop? I refused to
sign the non-disclosure agreement be-
cause if I did, I would no longer be able
to be the voice for the animals and na-
ture.
Mr Rajathurai has been rooting for na-
ture and wildlife for 37 years and is deter-
mined to continue doing so.
“You have to stand up and be
counted. You can’t just sit at the back
and complain. That’s what we are trying
to teach youngsters today. They lack the
confidence, but they have the knowl-
edge and abilities so we’re slowly trying
to get them exposed because it’s their
turn.”
Mr Rajathurai doesn’t have to look
too far. His sons – Saker, named after a
falcon, and Serin, named after a finch –
have been influenced and guided by him
since they were infants.
He and his wife, Ms Shamla Jeyarajah
who works alongside him at Strix
Wildlife Consultancy, used to take them
on field trips when they were only a few
months old.
“I used to have my second son in my
backpack and every time I bent down to
see an animal, there was a danger of him
flying out.”
Once they became older, they were
involved in wildlife population surveys
and television documentary pro-
grammes.
Now, Saker, 18, is doing his A levels
at Yishun Junior College and Serin, 23,
is pursuing a degree in wildlife consul-
tancy and biology and marine biology at
Murdoch University.
“Exposing them to nature at a young
age gave them a sense of responsibility
to protect the environment. The next
generation has to take over and con-
tinue the work we have put into play.
They must come up with ideas we didn’t
think of,” said Mr Rajathurai.
He believes that one can never be
done with exploring nature and sees Sin-
gapore’s reserves as a great outdoor class-
room.
“Nature is a never-ending learning
process. As I say very often, you can live
five lifetimes and still not know it all.
There’re always surprises around the cor-
ner, always something new to discover
and that makes it a lot fun.”
➥
Wildlife expert and conservationist Subaraj Rajathurai with the skin of a black spitting cobra.
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“Nature is a never-ending learning process. As I
say very often, you can live five lifetimes and still
not know it all. There’re always surprises around
the corner, always something new to discover and
that makes it a lot fun.”
– Wildlife expert and conservationist Subaraj Rajathurai
Off the beaten track
SINGAPORE
tabla
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November23,2018
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