With Army help, tiger hunters now hunted

THE British Army is to train Malaysian rangers in antipoaching techniques to help protect endangered tigers, after securing backing from the Royal family.

The Armed Forces are to send counter-poaching specialists into the country’s rainforests to teach locals how to track down poachers over great distances and long periods of time.

At a seminar about conservation in Malaysia yesterday, attended by the Prince of Wales, the UK’s High Commissioner announced that specialists would help the country reach its aim of more than doubling the number of tigers by 2020.

The Prince of Wales’s charitable body supported the project financially when it was in its infancy, funding a pilot after Captain Luke Townsend wrote to the Palace to share an initial idea.

Royal support for the initiative has also come from wildlife conservation charity Tusk Trust, which counts the Duke of Cambridge as its patron and has also given funds to the scheme.

Visiting Malaysia’s Royal Belum State Park by helicopter, Prince Charles joined a meeting about conservation devoted particularly to tigers. He later went on a 45-minute, high-speed boat ride around Lake Temenggor to see their habitat.

The numbers of Malayan tigers fell by around half to just 250 animals during an 11-year period to 2014, with experts identifying poachers as the main factor in their demise.