Sumatran tigers maul six people, killing two

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Sumatran tigers have mauled at least six people in the jungles of Riau province since last month, killing two of the victims, an official said on Tuesday.

Riau's natural resources conservation agency (KSDA) head Jhone Kinedie said all the victims were suspected illegal loggers operating in the Senepis area near the town of Dumai, Riau.

He was quoted by Antara as saying in the provincial capital of Pekanbaru that the KSDA had dispatched a team to catch the tigers, which were reported to have left their habitat.

The team would return the tigers to their original range, Kinedie added.

He said the two dead victims had been identified only as Tulus and Ujang.

Kinedie did not say when the tigers attacked the six loggers.

The 60,000-hectare Senepis forest has been declared a conservation zone by the Dumai mayor.

The confirmation of its status as a conservation forest, however, requires a decree from the Ministry of Forestry.

Kinedie said he hoped the tiger attacks would prevent other people from illegally logging in the same forest.

Attacks on humans have by wild animals have increased in recent years as the habitats of the endangered species, such as tigers, have been devastated due to unchecked illegal logging across the country.

Poaching is also a danger.

About 50 Sumatran tigers were killed every year by poachers between 1998 and 2002, according to a joint report by the World Wildlife Fund and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

The report was quoted by AFP as saying that only an estimated 400 to 500 remain in the wild on Sumatra, one of Indonesia's biggest islands.

Two other species, the Bali tiger and Javanese tiger, are already extinct -- having disappeared in the 1940s and 1980s respectively.

Leading environmentalist group, The Indonesian Forum for Environment (Walhi), has said that 80 percent of the logging taking place in the country is illegal.