PADANG, Indonesia — One of an estimated 400 of the world’s remaining Sumatran tigers was found dead on July 25 after becoming trapped in a wire snare set in Agam district, West Sumatra province. “Based on the results of the postmortem, this female Sumatran tiger died due to a ruptured trachea, fracture of the neck bone and respiratory failure because of being entangled around the throat,” Lugi Hartanto, the head of the West Sumatra conservation agency, told Mongabay Indonesia. The tiger was a female, no more than 3 years old, and had not given birth to cubs, Lugi said. Residents in Agam had complained of a tiger prowling farming areas over a period of around four months prior to the discovery. Efforts by conservation fieldworkers to capture the tiger using a cage trap, with the intention of moving the animal to a new location, had not been successful. “The plan since March was to evacuate the tiger, but we couldn’t catch it,” Lugi said. Lugi said farmers commonly used small snares to trap wild boar, which are known to eat food crops across much of rural Indonesia. Conservation agency staff had visited many villages in West Sumatra to request that farmers not set snares because of the danger to Sumatran tigers (Panthera tigris sumatrae). Lugi said agency staff would continue to work with residents living near tiger habitats, but emphasized the challenges involved because of the risks to life and livelihood that farmers faced on the ground. A tigress that…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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