Tigers' light burning out in the jungles of Sumatra

This Sumatran tigress was believed to have killed three men but rangers planned to relocate her deep in the jungle rather than put her down. Photo / AP

SUNGAI GELAM - Indonesia's tiger catchers have a double job - protecting humans from tigers and tigers from humans.

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

This time, Sartono, who at 40 has spent nearly half his life in the job, arrives with his six-member squad at a remote oil palm plantation in Sungai Gelam district, 600km west of the capital, Jakarta, knowing they will have to act fast.

Three people have been killed in less than a week - Rabai Abdul Muthalib, 45, a rubber tapper killed near a river and, days later, Suyud, 50, and his son, Imam Mujianto, 21, who were sleeping in their hut when the tiger pounced through the thin roof. It ate the brain, heart and liver of the youngest victim, spreading terror through the surrounding villages.

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

Only about 250 of the cats are left in the wild compared with about 1000 in the 1970s, says the World Wildlife Fund, meaning the Panthera tigris sumatrae could become the first large predator to become extinct in the 21st century.

The tiger catchers' 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. Often they come back empty-handed, but this time, not long after beginning their intensive foot patrol through palm oil plantations and peatland forest, they have good reason to feel optimistic.

They find and snap photos of fresh paw prints and, together with experts from the Zoological Society of London, start repositioning their traps around the rugged Makin Group's palm oil plantation. They use a young dog and a goat as bait but place the animals in interior cages to protect them.

For the next few days, they hike beneath the equatorial sun, their clothes soaked in sweat, in search of clues, while other team members interview witnesses and check out rumours of more attacks and sightings. Finally, they have one of their own.

On a scorching afternoon, an adult tiger charges out of dense jungle brush and then suddenly retreats into the shrubbery. Slowly, as Sartono aims his cocked rifle at the trembling bushes, the squad walks backward.

"I was afraid, who wouldn't be," the veteran tiger catcher says later with an uneasy laugh. "We might have experience, but we don't have superpowers."

After the big cat manages to bite off the goat's head and drag the so-called safety cage with its carcass into the nearby brush, the squad finally snags her.

When they pull up to the site in their green pick-up truck on day eight, they find a tigress 1.8m long - excluding the tail - crouched in the trap. First she is calm, then she explodes, growling and throwing her 82kg body against the steel bars.

"Easy, easy, we're here to save you," whispers Nurazman Nurdin of the Nature Conservation Agency, as the crew carefully approach the tigress, which has since been named Salma.

For the tiger catchers, 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. Although some support plans to relocate the animal into a jungle far away, others wish the rangers would just shoot it. Many worry there may be more tigers out there.

They are right. Three more people have been mauled to death in the same area since the capture, all of them illegal loggers. Since those attacks took place within the big cats' habitat, there are no immediate plans to catch or relocate them.

Among the most traumatised is Efrianto, a 28-year-old villager who survived January's midnight attack on his uncle, Suyud, and cousin, Mujianto, by kicking a hole through the wall of their hut and running for help.

The men on the tiger team said it was disturbing - and rare - that Salma ate one of the victim's remains. Normally, Sumatran tigers avoid humans, but if they do kill a man, they usually leave the corpse untouched. The tiger catchers saw the unusual behaviour as a sign of how desperately 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, as he surveyed churned-up wasteland and neat rows of trees.

As their name suggests, these tigers can only be found in the wild on Sumatra island.

Their habitat is disappearing at an alarming rate, with 270,000ha of lowland forests being cleared annually, mostly for palm oil, which is used in cosmetics and candy but also to make "clean-burning" fuel for markets in the United States and Europe.

Other culprits are loggers and mining companies, whose projects limit mating grounds, leave remaining tiger populations isolated and scattered, and chase off the big cats' prey.

FACING DANGER
* About 250 Sumatran tigers are left in the wild compared with about 1000 in the 1970s.
* On average, five to 10 Sumatran tigers have been killed every year since 1998.
* Poachers who sell their carcasses for trophies or to supply a growing demand for tiger bones in traditional medicine can get US$3300 for a dead animal. Villagers who live in fear of attacks also kill them.
* The tigers' habitat is disappearing, with 270,000 hectares of lowland forests being cleared annually, mostly for palm oil.

- AP