'Foolish' residents

'Foolish' residents poison four tigers

JAKARTA: The dwindling tiger population in Indonesia's jungle- clad Sumatra island has suffered another blow after residents "foolishly" poisoned four of the beasts, police said on Tuesday. One full-grown female tiger and its three cubs were poisoned last Sunday by residents in the remote village of Jorong Durian Jantung in West Sumatra province, said Yadi Prariyadi, police chief of Pariaman district which covers the village. He said the killing, using poison-laced cow carcasses, was done because the tigers had been eating livestock in recent weeks. He speculated that the tigers had moved close to the village due to their dwindling natural habitat. Sumatran tigers are increasingly venturing into villages or plantations on the edge of forests since their natural habitat is rapidly shrinking. Activists say logging, both legal and illegal, is destroying forests. Sumatran tigers are now estimated to number only about 300 or 400. -- AFP