The man-eater: Attacks on humans by Sumatran tigers are on the rise as natural habitat shrinks

Published on Tuesday 3 March 2009 21:11

INDONESIA'S tiger catchers have a double job: protecting humans from tigers – and protecting tigers from humans.

The elite teams of rangers and conservationists rush to the scene every time villagers report attacks or sightings of critically endangered Sumatran tigers. First, they calm the people. Then, if there are signs the animal is nearby, they return with traps, live bait, heat-sensitive cameras and other equipment to capture the magnificent beasts.

Last month Sartono, 40, who has spent nearly half his life doing this job, arrived with his six-member squad at a remote oil palm plantation in Sungai Gelam district, 375 miles west of the capital, Jakarta.

Three people have been killed in the past week – Rabai Abdul Muthalib, 45, a rubber tapper ambushed near a river, and Suyud, 50, and his son, Imam Mujianto, 21, who were sleeping in their hut when the tiger pounced through the thin roof. The beast devoured the brain, heart and liver of the youngest victim, further terrifying local villagers.

Sartono knows if he and his team cannot end the killing spree, residents will shoot or poison the Sumatran tiger, a species already on the brink of extinction due to deforestation, poaching and clashes with humans.

There are only around 250 of the cats left in the wild, against about 1,000 in the 1970s, according to the World Wildlife Fund, meaning Panthera tigris sumatrae could become the first large predator to become extinct in the 21st century.

The team's job is to trap the animals, carry out health checks, fit them with GPS tracking collars and then release them back into national parks or other protected areas.

The teams positions their baited traps around the rugged Makin Group's palm oil plantation and wait.

On a scorching Sunday afternoon, an adult tiger charges out of the dense jungle brush and then suddenly retreats into the shrubbery. Slowly, with Sartano aiming his rifle at the bushes, the squad walks backward.

"I was afraid, who wouldn't be!" the veteran tiger catcher later says with an uneasy laugh. "We might have experience, but we don't have superpowers!" The squad finally manages to trap the animal.

When they pull up to the site in their green pick-up truck on day eight, the team find a tigress – later named Salma – crouched in the trap. First she is calm, then she explodes, growling and throwing her 180-pound body against the steel bars.

For the team it is a tense but thrilling moment. For villagers – who have locked themselves up after dark, shuttered stores, and cancelled prayers in the mosque from dusk to dawn – it is a relief. And though some support plans to relocate the animal, others wish the rangers would just shoot it. Many worry there may be more tigers out there.

And they are right: five people have been mauled to death in the same area since the capture, all of them illegal loggers, including two this weekend. Since those attacks took place within the cats' habitat, there are no immediate plans to relocate them.

Among the most traumatised is Efrianto, 28, who survived January's attack on his uncle, Suyud, and cousin, Mujianto, by kicking a hole through the wall of their hut.

The men on the tiger team said it was disturbing – and rare – that Salma ate a victim's remains. Normally, Sumatran tigers avoid humans, but if they do kill a man, they usually leave the corpse untouched. The squad saw the unusual behaviour as a sign of how hungry the tigress must have been.

"There's no place for its prey to live here, all the land has been converted into oil palm plantations," said Nurdin, the Nature Conservation Agency official.

For Sartono and his team, catching a tiger is bittersweet. "It's kind of sad, I feel sorry for the tiger, but it's better than the alternative," said Sartono.