Continued large-scale habitat destruction and decimation of prey populations are the major long-term threats to the continued existence of tigers in the wild.
A camera trap set up by WWF deep in the jungle captured first ever images of a rare female Sumatran tiger and her cubs.
After years of studying tigers using wildlife-activated camera traps set up in the forest, these were celebrated as the first images of a this tiger species with offspring.
At the time, however, worries about the safety of the area were already expressed by WWF scientists.
“The territory of this tigress is being rapidly cleared by two global paper companies, palm oil plantations, encroachers, and illegal loggers”, said Karmila Parakkasi, leader of WWF-Indonesia’s Sumatran tiger research team.
WWF also urged paper companies operating in the area – Sinar Mas/APP and APRIL - as well as palm oil plantations to help protect all high conservation value forests under their control that are the habitat of tigers and other endangered species.
May/June 2010
New camera trap videos and photos captured a male Sumatran tiger walking straight to a camera and sniffing it.
A week later, the heat-activated-video camera trap documented a bulldozer clearing trees for an illegal palm oil plantation in the same exact location.
The next day, the camera recorded a Sumatran tiger walking through the devastated landscape.
Like the Sumatran tiger, all other tiger species have suffered from wholesale clearing of their original home ranges.
Over the past 6 decades, tiger habitat has been extensively destroyed, degraded and fragmented by human activities - mainly clearing of forests for agriculture and the timber trade as well as development activities such as the building of road networks.
In the last 10 years, tiger habitat decreased by an alarming 45%. Today, tigers occupy just 7% of their historic range.
Why do we need to protect tiger habitat?
Such extensive habitat loss and fragmentation has forced tigers into small, scattered islands of remaining habitat.
Tigers need large territories, so reduced habitat means that fewer tigers can survive in the wild.
In addition, isolated populations are more susceptible to inbreeding, and small islands of habitat are more accessible to poachers than large tracts of natural forest.
Along with habitat loss, tigers have suffered from severe loss of natural prey populations - in particular, ungulates such as wild deer, goats, sheep, and pigs - either due to direct hunting by people or through competition with domestic animals.
Loggers clearing a swamp forest for a palm oil plantation. (Illegal logging) Central Kalimantan, Indonesia.
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