Only a few Sumatran tigers live on the Indonesian island. Now three of them have died in a trap that was apparently intended for completely different animals.
Medan – Three rare Sumatran tigers died in a trap in Indonesia. The cadavers of the big cats – a mother tiger and her two cubs – were discovered in a wire trap in the northern province of Aceh, a spokesman for the local conservation agency said.
"It was said that the trap was intended for wild boars, but of course any other animal can get caught in it," the spokesman said. The Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) is the smallest of the living subspecies of the tiger. Above all, poaching and the loss of natural habitat due to palm oil plantations have decimated the number. It is estimated that only around 400 of the big cats remain in the wild on Sumatra. On the Red List of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the animals are listed as critically endangered. Other Indonesian subspecies such as the Bali tiger and the Java tiger are already extinct. dpa
