Dave Mosher Wired Science 5 Aug 11;
Wildlife conservationists and a controversial paper company this week relocated a critically endangered tiger away from plantations and onto a national park in Sumatra, an Indonesian island famous for its rich biodiversity.
A veterinarian performed a final checkup on the 7-year-old female Sumatran tiger, named Putri or “princess” in Indonesian, and fitted her with a GPS tracking collar shortly before she woke up from sedatives. After the gate to her cage was lifted by remote control from a nearby boat, Putri strolled into the jungle.
Camera traps sprinkled around the release site will record Putri’s activity as she settles into her new home in Sembilang National Park, South Sumatra.
“The Sumatran tiger is a national treasure and a symbol of our rich history. It is imperative that as a nation we work together to ensure the health and longevity of this species for generations to come,” said Zulkifli Hasan, Indonesia’s Minister of Forestry, in a press release.
Conservationists earlier this year found 165-pound Putri roaming a plantation forest grown on slashed-and-burned land in South Sumatra and captured her. Since then, several organizations have worked together to monitor Putri’s health and design a plan to move her far away from humans.
Asia Pulp & Paper, a company whose logging practices on Sumatra recently caused Lego to stop using its products, and which is alleged by environmental organization Greenpeace to have driven Putri from her home in the first place, helped fund the relocation.
About 500 Sumatran tigers exist in the wild, according to recent estimates. Poaching the tigers for their striped coats is a problem, but unprecedented deforestation continues to shrink their native habitat.
Most of the forest losses are due to paper milling and palm oil plantations. Since the 1980s, about half of Sumatra’s natural forests have been destroyed. From 2000 to 2005, the region saw close to a 3 percent loss of its remaining natural forest cover.
The relocation effort by Asia Pulp & Paper comes shortly after Greenpeace released graphic footage of a Sumatran tiger dying in a wild boar trap (video and gallery.) According to their report, the animal struggled for seven days on the border of the company’s deforested land before eventually dying.
