Tigers like durians?

Referring to The Jakarta Post's column "This Odd World" titled "King of fruits lures beasts" dated Dec. 31, 2001 taken from the Malaysian news agency Bernama on tigers eating durians, I have to say that I have not heard such a fairy tale since my childhood. I very much doubt its truth because tigers are meat eaters.

About ten years ago a similar report was published in one of the newspapers in Jakarta. To find out the truth, I phoned the then chief of Ragunan Zoo, Linus Simanjuntak, who gave his approval to my offering durians to tigers in the zoo.

The Indian tiger we offered durians to became enraged and ferociously lunged at us. Then we approached a tiger cub. When forced just to smell the durians, it attacked us and we had to make a sharp exit. The last experiment was with three young Sumatran tigers who were playing with their tamers. Even the tamers could not get them to eat, let alone lick, the fruit. The entirely unsuccessful experiment was recorded on video and I wrote a report about it in Tempo magazine.

So the story about tigers eating durians is a total lie. As far as I am concerned, hard evidence is required to prove otherwise.

SUNARTO PRAWIROSUJANTO

Jakarta