By Rosli Zakaria

Zakq Roy from New Jersey, United States of Amerika, loves Malaysia not for the cuisine but for the fishes – the wild and rare kind.

Being air borne over 15,000 km which disrupted his circadian rhythm, failed to stop his excitement of trying to fulfil his wish list of recording 50 local fish species.

The 22-year old citizen scientist who landed in Malaysia on Jan 3 and will return home on Jan 16, got more than what he wished for.

Together with a fellow citizen scientist  and ichthyologist Mohd Ilham Norhakim Lokman from Muar, Johor, they travelled about 1,500 km in 14 days throughout Johor, Selangor and Pahang to carry out sampling of local fish species.

Take 5… Zakq Roy (foreground) and friends in Muar river

Mohd Ilham is also a visiting researcher for Environmental Management and Conservation Research Unit (eNCORe), Tun Hussein Onn University.

“I’ve loved fish since I was very young, just catching and observing them. But as I got older I realised there were tons of species and unique traits within each species, many unstudied.

“In my home state there was no general guide to the fishes and I had to find out most of the information on my own, which inspired me to be the one to create and centralise that information,” said Roy.

He made contact with Mohd Ilham through a mutual friend who is a PhD student at Monash University studying fish.

As a citizen scientist, Roy said he’d like to think that his work is very important for the conservation of fishes.

“If we want to understand and protect these species we will need the information I collected and it is better to do it sooner than the instant we need it,” he said.

Roy and Mohd Ilham taking a closer look at a Rasbora elegans caught in one of their sampling trip.

Roy said his exploration enabled him to see lots of unique and beautiful places and creatures every day.

“Fish are great, but studying them is also a great excuse to be out in nature and see new things.

“Fish are constantly moving, and in many ways are invisible because we don’t know what’s there until we pull the nets up.

“This makes finding specific species and its population very difficult. The job is also highly weather dependent. Even a little rain can turn a nice shallow stream to impossible working conditions,” he said.

In this first trip, Roy caught 130 fish species in Malaysia in the first 10 days of sampling – which was more than he had bargained for.

“My goal before coming to the country was only 50 species, so it’s safe to say I succeeded.

“And I am coming back because there are still many places and things to see. I didn’t get to visit the north of Peninsular Malaysia nor Borneo,” he added.

Roy is also active on YouTube and Twitter.

“Most of my followers are on YouTube, where I have around 325,000 subscribers. I have followers also on other platforms but YouTube is my main place.”

Roy loves catfish, especially the small fast water catfish species like Akysis hendricksonii, Pseudomystus stenomus and Leiocassis poeciloptera.

“Finding rare betta was also very cool, such as Betta persephone and Betta tomi,” added Roy who travelled alone but was confident he is in good hands while in Malaysia.

“My friends here will keep me safe and show me a good time, so no worries. I was a little nervous to fly so far but it was a good trip,” added Roy.

NOTE: Rosli Zakaria joined the New Straits Times in January, 1983, and was exposed to various units, namely general news, crime, features, politics and economic desk within 10 years. His vast experience led him to be entrusted to lead the Terengganu bureau as Staff Correspondent and later promoted as Bureau Chief at the same branch until 2009. He was appointed as Press Secretary Terengganu Menteri Besar until 2014, after which he returned to the Terengganu NST as bureau chief until retirement at 2018.