National parks are not safe havens for critically endangered big cats in Sumatra, as shown by new photographs by WWF-Indonesia showing a wild Sumatran tiger with a missing front paw, thought to have been chewed by the animal in desperation in order to escape a snare trap. The male tiger was recorded by a camera trap in Tesso Nilo National Park in central Sumatra.
With fewer than 400 animals left in the wild, the Sumatran tiger is one of the most endangered tiger subspecies in the world, even more so than the massive Siberian tiger. Of the five surviving tiger subspecies, the South China subspecies faces the most dire future, if not effective extinction already. The Caspian, Balinese and Javan subspecies are already extinct. Endemic to Sumatra, Sumatran tigers are losing habitat to agricultural and logging operations and targeted by poachers who set snares in protected parks with impunity. Although the photographed individual appears to be in good condition, Sunarto, Tiger Survey and Monitoring Co-ordinator, WWF-Indonesia, said, "The Sumatran tiger population is at such low levels, we can't afford to lose even one individual to a snare."
WWF is working with the Tesso Nilo National Park authority and natural resource conservation office (BKSDA) in Riau province to increase awareness of tiger conservation, including urging people to stop using snares and educating them on potential risks of such practices. Since 2005, WWF and BKSDA’s antipoaching teams in central Sumatra have confiscated at least 101 snares, 75 of them inside the protected areas of Tesso Nilo National Park and Rimbang Baling Wildlife Reserve. Twenty-three snares were identified as specifically targeting tigers; the rest are used for wild boar, muntjac and sambar deer and sun bears.
“The use of snares is not only threatening the remaining tiger population, it also leads to a bigger problem: human-tiger conflict,” said Sunarto. “When a tiger is sick or crippled, its ability to hunt and catch natural prey is reduced significantly. As a result, such tigers search for food in nearby villages, attacking livestock or even people.”
With suitable terrain and abundant natural prey, Tesso Nilo National Park is a crucial refuge for the survival of Sumatran tigers as well as Sumatran elephants. At least 5 individuals are known to be based in the park, with another two in a adjacent area that WWF and its partners have proposed as an extension, which will bring the park from 38,576 hectares to at least 100,000 hectares to ensure long-term viable populations of elephants and tigers in the area. But the park faces a serious threat from illegal encroachments for widespread, small-holder palm oil plantation development, which has resulted in the loss of close to 20,000 hectares of natural forest, through August 2006. This condition has led to fragmented and reduced habitat and more frequent human-wildlife conflict.
Other recent news:
Tigers Not Safe in Own 'Home' in Inter Press Service
Act quickly to conserve tigers and other wildlife in The Star, Malaysia
Crocodiles scare tiger poachers in India in seattlepi.com
China's move to restart tiger parts trade will encourage poachers, says expert in DailyIndia.com
Significant decisions at 14th CITES meeting in The Star
Jungle Cry (a project in Terengganu to help tigers and villagers coexist) in The New Straits Times
Tigers on path to extinction in The New Nation
World's tigers on "catastrophic" path to extinction in Scientific American
The current mass extinction
The Environmental Movement's Many Missteps Include its Stance on POpulation Issues in emagazine.com
Wild Earth No More? (Only 17 percent of Earth's surface untouched by human activity) in nationalgeographic.com
The End of the Wild? and Is There Any Wilderness Left? New Study Examines Exploitation of Natural Resources by the Nature Conservancy
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Posted by: calsifer | 18 July 2007 at 12:20 PM