Camera-trap surveys have documented a sizeable but struggling population of Sumatran tigers clinging on in unprotected forests in Indonesia’s Aceh province. The study is the most robust evidence to date of the presence of the critically endangered big cats in the Ulu Masen Ecosystem, a little-studied landscape adjoining Sumatra’s better-known and relatively well-protected Leuser Ecosystem. Spanning 9,500 square kilometers (nearly 3,700 square miles) of rugged and mountainous terrain at the northwestern tip of the island of Sumatra, the majority of Ulu Masen falls outside Indonesia’s network of protected areas. As such, the biodiverse landscape is rarely considered within national conservation policy and budgeting. However, Ulu Masen is straining under development pressure, illegal logging and poaching, and in dire need of conservation attention. In addition to Sumatran tigers (Panthera tigris sumatrae), it’s also home to a host of other rare and threatened species. Critically endangered Sumatran elephants (Elephas maximus sumatranus) and Sunda pangolins (Manis javanica) have been recorded in the landscape, alongside other key forest carnivores such as Sunda clouded leopards (Neofelis diardi), marbled cats (Pardofelis marmorata) and dholes (Cuon alpinus), and more than 300 species of birds. To assess the tiger population, the study team led by Joe Figel, science adviser at the Leuser International Foundation, installed camera traps at 52 locations across Ulu Masen’s vast landscape. Between 2020 and 2022, they amassed 6,732 nights’ worth of recordings, ultimately photographing a total of 11 individual tigers, all of them adults. They published their findings in Scientific Reports. One of eight…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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