Tigers are killed for body parts used in traditional medicines (Image: WWF-Canon, Alain Compost)
Indonesia’s last tiger species – the Sumatran tiger – is on the brink of extinction, warns a new report on tiger poaching and trade.
At least 50 tigers have been poached each year between 1998 and 2002, says the report by campaign groups TRAFFIC and WWF, published on Tuesday. The latest population estimates show there were only 400 to 500 tigers left on Sumatra in 1999.
The report “should sound the alarm regarding the crisis Sumatra’s Tigers currently face” say its authors. They fear the tigers may be doomed to the same fate as Indonesia’s other two tiger subspecies – the Bali and Javan tigers which were pushed to extinction in the 1930s and 1980s respectively.
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Undercover operations by TRAFFIC revealed substantial domestic trading in tiger parts in Indonesia. As well as poaching, loss of its forest habitat due to commercial and illegal logging is also a major threat to the big cat.
With 400 to 500 tigers left, there are doubts whether the population will survive (Image: WWF / Fredy Mercay)
“Tigers all over the world are under threat. Now, the Sumatran tiger is on the brink of extinction,” says Susan Lieberman, director of WWF’s International Species Programme. “With so few left, there are doubts about whether the population is still viable.”
“Increased and improved enforcement is the only thing that is going to save Sumatran tigers,” says TRAFFIC’s Chris Shepherd, co-author of the report. “As a first step, action should be taken against the markets, trade hubs and retail outlets highlighted in the report.”
Tooth and claw
TRAFFIC examined Sumatra’s trade in tiger parts from April to November 2002, using undercover investigations, literature reviews and interviews with hunters, retailers and zoo staff.
A quarter of the 484 shops and dealers surveyed in 24 towns across Sumatra had tiger parts for sale, particularly canine teeth and claws. This “substantial market” exists despite the rare tiger being fully protected by law – with steep fines and tough jail sentences for transgressors.
Tiger parts are historically valued in the region. The skin of a Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) is believed to possess magical powers – protecting owners from black magic.
Parts are also used in traditional medicines – tiger bone is used as a treatment for rheumatism, and the tiger’s penis is considered an aphrodisiac when soaked in wine.
Iconic species
The Sumatran tiger is listed as critically endangered on the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN’s) 2003 Red List of threatened animals.
“The Sumatran tiger is one of those iconic species,” Sarah Christie, a tiger expert with the Zoological Society of London, UK, told the BBC. “If we save it we pass the test because in protecting its habitat we will save so many other species from extinction as well.”
The Sumatran tiger’s habitat has been slashed by logging and settlement to just a quarter of the island, with only eight per cent protected as conservation areas, highlights the report.
WWF is calling for a moratorium on the clearing of Sumatra’s lowland forests by paper companies.
![Astronomers have long known that understanding how star clusters come to be is key to unlocking other secrets of galactic evolution. Stars form in clusters, created when clouds of gas collapse under gravity. As more and more stars are born in a collapsing cloud, strong stellar winds, harsh ultraviolet radiation and the supernova explosions of massive stars eventually disperse the cloud, and their light can bear down on other star-forming regions in the galaxy. This process is called stellar feedback, and it means that most of the gas in a galaxy never gets used for star formation. Researching how star clusters develop can answer questions about star formation at a galactic scale. Now, the state of the art has been further developed with both Hubble and Webb working together to provide a broad-spectrum view of thousands of young star clusters. An international team of astronomers has pored over images of four nearby galaxies from the FEAST observing programme (#1783), trying to solve this mystery. Their results show that it is the most massive star clusters that clear away their gaseous shroud the fastest, and begin lighting their galaxy the earliest. The team identified nearly 9000 star clusters in the four galaxies in different evolutionary stages: young clusters just starting to emerge from their natal clouds of gas, clusters that had partially dispersed the gas (both from Webb images), and fully unobstructed clusters visible in optical light (found in Hubble images). With Webb???s ability to peer inside the gas clouds, they were able to then estimate the mass and age of each cluster from its light spectrum. This image shows a section of one of the spiral arms of Messier 51 (M51), one of the four galaxies studied in this work, as seen by Webb???s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). The thick clumps of star-forming gas are shown here in red and orange, representing infrared light emitted by ionised gas, dust grains, and complex molecules such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Within these gas complexes, each tens or hundreds of light years across, Webb reveals the dense, extremely bright clusters of massive stars that have just recently formed. The countless stars strewn across the arm of the galaxy, many of which would be invisible to our eyes behind layers of dust, are also laid bare in infrared light. [Image description: A large, long portion of one of the spiral arms in galaxy M51. Red-orange, clumpy filaments of gas and dust that stretch in a chain from left to right comprise the arm. Shining cyan bubbles light up parts of the gas clouds from within, and gaps expose bright star clusters in these bubbles as glowing white dots. The whole image is dotted with small stars. A faint blue glow around the arm colours the otherwise dark background.]](https://images.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/13114322/SEI_296271016.jpg)
