TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The East Aceh police confirmed on Sunday that two Sumatran tigers (Pantera Tigris Sumatrae) were found dead in a wire trap in the woods of Sri Mulya Village, Peunaron Sub-district.

A joint team of personnel from the East Aceh police and 01/Pnr Peunaron Sub-district Military Command was deployed to the wood on Sunday, East Aceh Police Chief Adjunct Sen.Coms.Mahmun Hari Sandy Sinurat said.

They found an adult female tiger and male tiger got ensnared in a wire trap that local hunters might have set for catching wild boars, he said.

The security personnel, deployed to the village's wood, were assisted by their colleagues from the Leuser Conservation Forum to secure the area while the police and East Aceh Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) identification team members finished their works, he said.

To prevent the recurrence of such this tragedy for the endangered Sumatran tigers, Sinurat urges local residents to stop installing wire traps for whatever reasons because they could harm protected animals.

For those breaching Indonesia's natural resources conservation law, they are subject to getting sanctioned, he said, adding that the punishment for those found guilty varies from one to five-year imprisonment as well as paying a fine of between Rp50 million and Rp100 million.

Cases related to Sumatran tigers getting ensnared in wire traps have frequently been found in several places in the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

On August 26, 2021, for instance, three Sumatran tigers that are native to the island of Sumatra, were found dead in Ie Buboh Village, Meukek Sub-district, South Aceh District, Aceh Province.

The Sumatran tigers, including two 10-month cubs, were found dead after being caught in wild boar traps that a poacher had set inside a conservation area.

ANTARA noted that in Indonesia, Sumatran tigers (Pantera Tigris Sumatrae) were the only surviving tiger species, as the country had already lost two sub-species of tigers to extinction: the Bali tiger that became extinct in 1937 and the Javan tiger in the 1970s.

Sumatran tigers, the smallest of all tigers, are currently a critically endangered species only found on Sumatra Island, Indonesia’s second-largest island.

The tigers are on the brink of extinction owing to deforestation, poaching, and conflicts between wild animals and local people owing to their dwindling habitats.

The exact figure of Sumatran tigers left in the wild is ambiguous, though the latest estimates range, from under 300 to possibly 500 at 27 locations, including in the Kerinci Seblat National Park, Tesso Nilo Park, and Gunung Leuser National Park.

According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), their numbers have decreased, from about one thousand in the 1970s.

The 2009 report by the forestry ministry points to conflict with humans being the biggest threat to conservation. The report cited that on average, five to 10 Sumatran tigers have been killed yearly since 1998.

Read: Sumatran Tiger Found Dead, Ensnared in Wire Trap in Bengkalis

ANTARA