Indonesia: Rangers Bust Suspected Sumatran Tiger Poachers

Radesman Saragih Jakarta Globe 14 Oct 15;

Jambi. Forest rangers in Sumatra have arrested three suspected members of a trafficking syndicate allegedly involved in the poaching of endangered tigers and trading of their pelts.

The arrests were the result of an undercover operation on Monday by the Jambi provincial conservation agency, or BKSDA, and the local police. Acting on a tipoff, rangers pretending to be tiger-skin buyers arranged a meeting with the suspects, who duly turned up with a tiger pelt and were promptly arrested, according to BKSDA chief ranger Krismanko Padang.

He identified the three suspects only by their initials and ages, ranging from 32 to 45 years old.

“The three suspects come from different regions in Sumatra,” Krismanko told reporters in Jambi on Wednesday. “We’re still investigating to see how far the syndicate extends outside the province.”

He said the suspects had confessed to obtaining the pelt from a tiger they claimed to have hunted inside the Bukit Tigapuluh National Park in Jambi, ostensibly a protected area.

Krsimanko said the killing of tigers in the province was “very high” and that the BKSDA was ramping up its efforts to crack down on poachers and traders. The agency has arrested 15 people so far this year in six cases connected to the hunting of tigers or trade in their skins or other body parts.

The Sumatran tiger, the smallest of the extant tiger subspecies, is listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, or just a step away from being extinct. There are an estimated 300 to 400 of the animals left in their wild, with their numbers fast dwindling as a result of poaching and habitat loss to make way for oil palm, rubber and logging concessions.