Sumatran tiger on the prowl toward extinction

By Emma Cameron

JAKARTA (JP): In the last two years, 66 Sumatran tigers have been found ready for illegal sale in markets in Sumatra by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

It is the equivalent of 20 percent of the tiger population of the South and Central areas of Sumatra. Sixty-six dead or captured tigers may not sound like a huge amount, but the number of Sumatran tigers which have died in the last 30 years, mainly due to poachers, is devastating in an already severely decimated population.

"If nothing is done about the problem, "within 10 to 15 years the wild population of tigers will be gone", said Chairul Saleh, senior project officer at WWF.

The research was conducted throughout Sumatra, excluding North Sumatra and Aceh. The WWF worked in conjunction with TRAFFIC Southeast Asia. The tigers were found in West Sumatra (nine), Jambi (five), Riau (13), Bengkulu (nine) and Lampung (30). Another 37 were found in national parks.

The Sumatran tiger is the only surviving subspecies of tiger in Indonesia (the smaller Bali tiger disappeared in the late 1970s; the Javan tiger also is probably gone, although a handful may live on in an East Java national park).

Results from surveys from 1972 to 1975 and one in 1978 found there were 1000 Sumatran tigers living in eight provinces -- Aceh, North Sumatra Utara, Riau, West Sumatra, Jambi, Bengkulu and Lampung. However, by 1992 the number was down to 400 in seven regions in Sumatra -- in the national parks of Gunung Leuser, Kerinci Seblat, Berbak, Bukit Barisan South and Way Kamba, as well as the nature preserves of Kerumutan and Rimbang nature preserves.

The Sumatran tiger, as one of the world's most gravely endangered mammals, is part of an international breeding program.

Wild Sumatran tigers are killed to be used illegally as ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine. From 1970 to 1993, South Korea had knowledge of 3,994 kilograms of tiger bone imported from Indonesia.

With this total, Indonesia was the country with the highest export rate (44.5 percent) compared to 11 other countries. In documents from the immigration office in Taiwan in 1984, Indonesia exported as much as 100 kilograms of tiger bone to other countries.

There are other uses of Sumatran tigers and the products are not only exported. In Indonesia tiger products such as the skin, teeth, claws and whiskers are sold.

Sumatran tiger teeth normally sell in Jakarta for between Rp 300,000 to Rp 500,000 per tooth. Tigers are also stuffed and sold as ornaments for homes.

The government has acknowledged the report by the WWF on the monitoring of wildlife trade and expressed its concern. However, it also conceded its limitations in pursuing the problem.

WWF's executive director Agus Purnomo acknowledged that poaching was a difficult activity to stop because "even though we have a list of names of hunters and taxidermists, if we arrest them new ones will simply take their place".

WWF believes the most effective approach is one of public awareness. With last week's discovery of a live tiger kept as a pet in Jakarta, the practices of keeping wild animals in cages, taxidermy and poaching of endangered species are all things that WWF believes need to be condemned in Indonesian society.

Although many people buy animals such as tigers at markets because they feel sorry for them, it does not provide a solution to the larger problem. "The younger generation needs to look down on keeping wild animals as pets," Purnomo said. In the recent live tiger case, there was no prosecution under an agreement that the tiger would be placed in a wildlife sanctuary.

The WWF, as with all organizations that rely on donations to do their work, has found its plans to fight wildlife poaching hampered by the recent economic crisis.

"People don't remember it much. Tigers when they're small are cute but the threat to life is not widely known," Purnomo said.

Although Purnomo understands that people's priorities are employment and income, he believes the moves of some regions of Indonesia toward independence are due in a large part to the environment. "Many regional conflicts are caused over national resources and environmental degradation."

WWF attempted to use the recent general election as an awareness catalyst for both the public and the politicians however support is generally of an unconstructive kind, expressions of sympathy with no concrete assistance.

At the moment the Sumatran tiger is not only suffering from the dangers of poaching but from a degradation of natural habitat. A large number of forest fires have occurred in the area, pushing the tigers out of their habitat. Loss of habitat was the main threat for the Sumatran tiger in the 1980s, but poachers have now taken over as the number one threat. There are plans to make forestry maps to determine the extent of the damage to tiger habitats.

With half of the poaching occurring in national parks, the need for national parks to be fully resourced is vital.

Perhaps the most sobering thought is that the 66 tigers found during the monitoring were simply the verified ones; the number of tigers ready to be sold at markets is estimated to be much greater.