TEMPO.CO, Meulaboh - Three Sumatran tigers reportedly sighted on roads at Alu Rambot Village in Nagan Raya District, Aceh Province. Local witnesses testimony suggested that a number of tigers were sighted when residents are making their way to palm oil fields.
"Since Wednesday, [September 19,2018] when locals travel through the access road to collect palm oil, we came accross several passing tigers," said Kamal, a Nagan Raya resident when contacted by Tempo on Friday, September 21, 2018.
Kamal said that they documented the moment while staying put inside a truck as the tigers passed their vehicle.
Once the tigers gathered in front of the truck, Kamal and his friends decided not to continue their journey. Meanwhile, the location of the sighting was located 10 kilometers away from a local residential area.
"We plan to fetch our truck again up there, hopefully the tigers would be gone. Surely we were scared, which is why we leave our vehicle behind at the location of the sighting," Kamal expressed.
According to testimonies and speculation from local residents, the tigers began to enter residential areas following an increase in the activities of a palm oil company conducting a renewal project, added with the fact that local residents had just opened up a new palm oil field within the forest area in the past weeks.
ANTARA