WWF has been helping various nations usher in the Chinese Year of the Tiger with new conservation efforts and now Indonesia can be added to the list with a series of new initiatives to save the Sumatran tiger.

Indonesia has turned its efforts toward saving the Sumatran tiger after losing the Balinese and Javan tigers to extinction in the 1930’s and 1980’s respectively.

The latest conservation push saw nine Sumatran tigers released back into the wild, including two tigers that were released at the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park in Lampung last month, according to Darori, the Ministry of Forestry’s director general of forest protection and nature conservation.

In January the Indonesian government also released its plans to rent a pair of tigers out to rich citizens willing to pay  1 billion rupiah (£70,000).

The adoption program is also part of the nation’s conservation program according to Darori as the animals will be “loaned out” in male/female pairs and would still belong to the government, as would any cubs born while the animals were in adoptive care.

WWF has identified a number of areas in the Sumatran region where the nation can set up wildlife corridors, which will connect various areas to the island’s three largest national parks in order to boost the animal’s declining population and increase their chances of finding a mate possibly living in another forest.

Currently there is an estimated 300 Sumatran tigers left in the wild as palm oil plantations, human settlements and land concessions has divided Sumatra’s rainforests into small clusters, isolating tiger populations and making breeding difficult.

The Sumatran tiger faces additional threats such as poaching and the increasing human population invading the animal’s natural habitat.

By Taylor Turner

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