NewsTiger Team's Story from the Fieldby Karmila Parakkasi It has been a year since our research team in the field successfully obtained the evidence of tiger presence in the corridor of Rimbang Baling - Bukit Tigapuluh. After finishing up the requirement of main data collection, last month our team has started the first phase of collecting information on tiger in the adjacent corridor, from Bukit Bungkuk Nature Reserve all the way to Rimbang Baling Wildlife Reserve. From these two corridors, the team found different conditions of this last surviving tiger subspecies in Indonesia.
After the great finding of Sumatran tiger family by video trap in October 2009, we did not get any new tiger image and video from January-March. Along with this, we documented fast changes on the forest cover surround the installed camera places. This leaded us to the assumption that tigers have been gone from areas they used to inhabit and possibly moved to other sites which beyond the reach of our cameras. One month before we uninstalled the cameras, our team found the indication of increasing poaching activities in the corridor. There were eleven wire snares confiscated by the Tiger Patrol Unit team from one of locations in the corridor where we obtained tiger images and videos before. To investigate whether the tiger still exist or not after the massive poaching intention, we decided to add another two pairs of camera traps placed in the adjacent camera grid locations. When we checked them in the following month, we are relieved to get one video and three images of Sumatran tiger. In neighboring villages such as Danau Santul and Pulau Pencong, there is a traditional belief that tiger is the sacred guardian and therefore villagers are prohibited to hunt the tiger. Villagers of Danau Santul recently showed two tigers wandering in rubber plantation in the last few days. This is the same location where villagers reported the information on tiger preying on a buffalo last month, which then followed up by our TPU team. Though these two wandered tigers caused villagers restless, villagers did not do anything harmful to tigers as they know that tigers are sacred animal. They did not go to their plantation to collect the rubber and just waited until the tigers went away from plantation. Nevertheless, such traditional belief which benefit to tiger should be preserved, and if necessary, it should be promoted to reach wider areas in order to gain support from the local communities to protect Sumatran tiger. |
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