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.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.
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