Indonesia trafficking raid yields tiger skin, foetuses

JAKARTA: Indonesian authorities detained five people in Pelalawan district of Riau province for allegedly poaching and trading body parts of rare Sumatran tigers, an official said yesterday.

The Environment and Forestry Ministry’s law enforcement and forest protection director, Sustyo Iriono, said officials from the ministry and the police seized four tiger foetuses from three suspects, including a husband and wife, during a raid on Saturday morning.

“The foetuses were stored in a plastic jar. Based on the information from the suspects, the authorities were able to arrest two more and seized a skin of an adult tiger,“Iriono told dpa.

The suspects could face up to five years in prison and a fine of 100 million rupiah (RM29,642) according to articles in the 1990 natural resources conservation law.

The Sumatran tiger is the last of Indonesia’s three sub-species of tigers that still exists and is listed as a critically endangered species. The big cat has been pushed to the brink of extinction due to its natural habitat rapidly perishing as a result of massive deforestation.

According to data from the forestry ministry, there are roughly 600 Sumatran tigers now living in the species’ natural habitat, but human encroachment on the protected forest that the tigers inhabit has caused frequent human-tiger conflict.

A farmer was found dismembered earlier this week after a suspected attack by a rare Sumatran tiger in his coffee field in South Sumatra province.