Jakarta Globe 19 Mar 10;
Natural Resources Conservation Office of Riau has arrested a 92 year old man for killing more than 50 Sumatran tigers over his lifetime.
“At first we didn’t believe Grandpa Wiryo was a tiger hunter, but after we conducted surveillance, we finally arrested the suspect with three sacks of evidence,” Riau conservation head Edi Susanto told SCTV on Friday.
Edi said the evidence consisted of skin and bones from a tiger killed early this month in the Kerumutan wildlife conservation area in Indragiri Hulu district. Authorities also confiscated tiger traps belonging to the suspect.
“From the preliminary investigation, the suspect admitted he had killed more than 50 tigers,” said Edi. “Grandpa Wiryo could be the godfather of tiger hunters.”
Wiryo had slaughtered more than 40 Sumateran tigers in Riau since 1960, Edi said. He also hunted in West Sumatra and Java island.
The aged hunter faces up to five years imprisonment and a penalty of Rp 100 million ($10,989). Authorities believe Wiryo was involved with an international network. Wiryo admitted that he had regular customers from Singapore.
“I have been a tiger hunter since I was 17 years old,” said Wiryo.
JG
Lifetime tiger hunter, 92, snared in Indonesia
Yahoo News 19 Mar 10;
JAKARTA (AFP) – Indonesian conservationists said on Friday they had caught red-handed a 92-year-old man who had admitted to killing dozens of critically endangered Sumatran tigers over a lifetime of hunting.
"We caught him Thursday while he was sailing a traditional wooden boat in a river in Kuala Cinaku with evidence of skin, skull and 8.3 kilos of bones from a tiger," Iwin Kasiwan, from the natural conservation agency in Riau province, Sumatra, told AFP.
The man, named Wiryo, told conservationists that he started hunting tigers for a living when he was 17 on Java island. He moved to Sumatra in 1960 as the population of Javan tiger decreased.
"According to him, he has killed more than 50 Sumatran tigers in Riau province alone," Kasiwan said, adding it could see the 92-year-old jailed for up to five years.
Wiryo explained that he managed to sell the tiger parts in Singapore.
There are fewer than 400 Sumatran tigers left in the wild and their increasing contact with people is a result of habitat loss due to poaching and deforestation, according to conservationists.
