Over 10 wild animals killed on Indonesia's Lampung highway daily

Antara 23 Aug 10;

Liwa, West Lampung (ANTARA News) - Over 10 wild animals from the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park forest are killed daily by passing motor-vehicles on the western track of the tans-Sumatra highway in Lampung on the southern tip of Sumatra Island.

"Every day, I always find animals which were killed by vehicles passing through the western track of the trans-Sumatra highway," Marsono, an inhabitant of Bengkunat Belimbing sub district, West Lampung, around 360 km from Bandar lampung, said here Monday.

The poor animals, which include anteaters, deer and wild cats, were usually ran over by night traffic, he said.

The highway which skirts the edge of forest areas, is always busy with many cars passing by, he said.

Another witness, Asep Triadi, a Bandarlampung resident who often passes the highway, said he once hit a wild animal on the highway.

"The presence of the wild animals roaming around on the highway in the evening could endanger passerby, especially the big ones," he said.

He hoped that several forest patrol posts could be set up along the highway to prevent the animals from crossing the street.

Sumatra is home to some of the richest and most diverse tropical forests on the planet.
The island house thousands of unique species and the world?s last remaining Sumatran tigers, orangutans, pygmy elephants and Sumatran rhinos.

There are as few as 400 Sumatran tigers left in the wild and they are under relentless pressure from poaching and clearing of their habitat.