The Star
By LOH FOON FONG and MUGUNTAN VANAR
newsdesk@thestar.com.my
Exotic delicacy: Imported sea cucumber sold at one of the shops in Kota Kinabalu.
PETALING
JAYA: Those who wish to consume the sea cucumber during Chinese New
Year, considered a delicacy, should purchase it from a trusted source to
avoid any poisoning, said Universiti Sains Malaysia's marine biologist
Prof Dr Zulfigar Yasin.
He
said that in recent years, some unscrupulous traders had mixed
poisonous sea cucumbers with non-poisonous ones due to high demand.
“It is best to purchase them in wet condition as it is easier to differentiate them.
“And buy from people who are culturing them or from reputable sources,” he said when contacted.
Dr Zulfigar said that sea cucumber that were edible were usually larger in size.
“It is easier to identify an edible sea cucumber when bought fresh rather than dry,” he said.
However,
he cautioned that the poisonous ones would look similar to the
non-poisonous ones, which made it difficult for others to note the
difference.
He said that he had seen people collecting poisonous ones along the Straits of Malacca and sold them to interested buyers.
“The very poisonous sea cucumber is the
Holothuria atra species
which is black in colour and has smooth skin,” he said, adding that in
some Pacific islands, they were used to poison fish.
Dr Zulfigar
said that holothurin poisoning was rare and difficult to be detected in
the blood because the amount of poison was too minute, while poisoning
could also happen when other contaminated shellfish were eaten together
with the sea cucumber.
There were more than 100 common sea
cucumber species in Malaysia and the Chinese consumed them as food while
the Malays used them as medicine, he said.
The Chinese consume several species including many
Stichopus species and the
Holothuria scabra (or sandfish) while the
Theleonata Ananas were valuable species, he said.
For the Malays, the
Stichopus hermanii species was used as medicine as a drink or ointment, he added.
He said that many sea cucumbers were found in deep waters while some only came out of the reefs at night.
In
KOTA KINABALU, a local sea cucumber wholesaler said in Sabah, about 20
species were harvested, processed and exported to restaurants in
peninsula Malaysia.
“However, there are one or two species that
we do not use as they are quite toxic,” he said, adding that most of
their stock were obtained from Sabah's east coast Semporna.
The
wholesaler, who only wanted to be identified as Qian, said lower grade
sea cucumbers cost slightly over RM100 for each kilo while those of good
quality could fetch up to between RM800 and over RM1,000.
Chinese
medicine shop owner Paul Huang said that most buyers would consume sea
cucumber for better blood circulation as well as to ease joint pains.
Two die after eating poisonous sea cucumber
KOTA KINABALU: Two men have died after eating a poisonous species of sea cucumber in Sabah’s northern Kudat district.
State Fisheries Department
director Rayner Stuel Galid said the deaths were due to the consumption of a species of sea cucumber known locally as
pelanduk laut and unrelated to the red tide poisoning.
“We tested the specimen and found that the sea cucumber has its own toxin,” he said when contacted.
The
men, aged 51 and 54, died at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital here on
Thursday after they became ill from eating the sea cucumber during a
meal with four other people at Kg Suangpai in Kudat.
It is learnt
that the two men, who had suffered from severe vomiting, numbness and
breathing difficulties, were initially treated at the Kudat Hospital on
Wednesday before being transferred to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital here.
Two others who took the same meal were also treated in Kudat but they had less severe symptoms.
The toxic sea cucumber, which has black and purple dots, is found in Kudat’s Marudu bay.
Two
people have so far died from red tide poisoning in Sabah since it first
occurred off its shores in November in a phenomenon that is expected to
last until June.
The red tide phenomenon is triggered by a
deadly algae bloom, which produces toxic or harmful effects to marine
life and turns the water red.
