馬來西亞檳城喬治市在2008年登入世界文化遺產，在國際殊榮之下城內尚有許多待解決之事，其一最大爭議是養燕產業的問題。金絲燕是一種用口水吐巢的鳥類，棲息在熱帶潮濕的山洞，也會主動在人類的建築物上築巢。這些鳥巢經處理後為昂貴的燕窩，為華人飲食文化的一部份。1990年代大馬華人競相興起養燕熱潮，全馬大城小鎮的燕屋如雨後春筍般地冒出，檳城喬治市也不例外。喬治市早已有養燕活動的存在，2008年登入世界遺產後，屋燕養殖從合法轉為違法而引發爭議，政府最後強制拆遷遺產區的燕屋。藉由共4個月的田野工作追溯這項爭議，本研究以動物地理學的關懷，討論自然－文化、人類－動物、野生－畜牧等之間，存在無法明確劃界的邊界地帶，進而反思何謂文化遺產、人與動物的關係又如何經由市民的遺產實作，形塑出世界遺產的地方新想像。

Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia inscribed UNESCO world cultural heritage sites in 2008. Under the city’s honor, swiftlet farming was one of the trickiest issues in the inner city. The swiftlet is a species of birds that use their saliva to make nests in humans’ houses. These birds’ nests can be cooked into soup considered a delicacy, making a lucrative business in Chinese food culture. Chinese Malaysian community started swiftlet farming systematically in the 1990s, when new birds' houses appeared across Malaysia, including Georgetown. In 2008, when Georgetown became a cultural heritage, controversies soon arose around bird farming in this city, and swiftlet farming was banned in order to improve the city for locals and tourist, and to preserve the old homes. Using 4 months of fieldwork by tracing these controversies, this study applies animal geography to demonstrate that the binaries of nature and culture, humans and animals, wild and domestication, are blurred, and the two things typically coexist in borderlands. This essay enables researchers to rethink how human-animal borderlands renew the local imagination for world cultural heritage and shape the meaning of heritage construction within daily practice.