Four Men Arrested For Killing Sun Bears & Making Them into Rendang

Crispy chicken rendang. You’ve seen it all over social media — the memes, illustrations, videos, and new food menus.

Rendang crispy my ass ??+??+??????? pic.twitter.com/QLW5cNq23e

— Mothership.sg (@MothershipSG) April 3, 2018

With the rendang issue cooking up a storm among South-east Asians, these four Indonesians decided to give it a different twist — by making rendang using the meat of an endangered species. 

A total of four sun bears were caught, killed and cooked by four men in Riau, Indonesia. The men, with the initials C.S., G.S., E, and Z.D.S., used traps to catch the sun bears, The Star reported.

Source: BBC Indonesia

Z.D.S. revealed that they were initially hunting pigs, and had set up 50 snares on March 18 with his three friends. However, after 12 days, they found a sun bear had been caught in their trap.

“I speared it, because it was still alive and the rest of my friends beat it with wood until it wasn’t moving anymore,” he added.

Happy with what they had caught, they set up the snares again on April 1, and caught two more sun bears. This time, the men placed the sun bears into cages, and shot them with air guns. 

Source: BBC Indonesia

They then harvested the sun bear meat and distributed it among the four of them, with Z.D.S. making rendang out of it while the other three made soup and ‘gulai‘ (curry-like sauce). The bile from the bears’ livers was also extracted and was intended to be used as traditional medicine for breathing problems.

”They also distributed the meat to other villagers,” local police chief Christian Rony said, as quoted by the Straits Times.

Apparently, one of the men uploaded a video of them skinning and cooking the sun bears on Facebook, which lead to their arrest just a few hours later by Riau Natural Resources Conservation Agency. Kantoi, lah.

Source: The Star

After being detained by the authorities, the men claimed they were unaware that sun bears were protected animals. 

They could face up to five years in jail and a fine of 100 million Rupiah (RM27,000), under Indonesia’s Conservation of Natural Resources and their Ecosystems (1990) law if convicted.

Source: Pintrest

According to BBC Indonesia, further investigations will be conducted to probe into similar incidents in the future.

As much as crispy chicken rendang is a no-no, bear rendang is without a doubt an even bigger no!

Also read: Malaysians Enraged After Endangered Tapir Dies From Mistreatment by Authorities