Keeping the last lowland SE Asian rainforest safe.

It is very easy to think that captive breeding, whether by zoos or individuals, is a solution to saving a species.  In practice, it rarely works.  There is always a good reason that a species has become extinct in an area, and unless you can resolve that reason, the new animals introduced will die for the same reasons.  Sometimes we can succeed – in stopping poaching, for example, which allows the animals to survive, though usually we won’t KNOW if we have stopped poaching till the animals are replaced – maybe the poachers only stopped because they ran out of animals.

Sometimes the entire theory is misplaced.  Tortoises, for example, tend not to have a wide range.  If you pick up a Greek tortoise in one valley, and then release it in the next valley, you will probably kill all the tortoises in the next valley because the tortoise you transported in carries a disease to which the residents have no resistance.  This can and has destroyed many resident animals of many species.

Sometimes the methodology is just wrong.  A few years ago, two seals were rescued at a cost of something like $240,000 each from an oil spill in America, paid for by public appeal, cleaned up and released to sea with a full PR exercise going full throttle, CNN cameras whirling.  A passing killer whale was delighted with the unexpected bounty and ate both on live television.

In other cases local people do not appreciate it.  In the UK an organisation in Scotland is very keen to turn their wilderness back to how it was, and with great fanfare has managed to get beaver breeding on the estate, and while the salmon and trout fisherman are none too happy, their disquiet is nothing compared to the feelings of the Scottish hill farmers at the news that wolves are next on the agenda…

Meanwhile, in south Sumatra they are happily releasing tigers into a reserve, some of them man-eaters.  These are wild tigers, and everything should be fine.  Except that these reserves are not well policed and large numbers of settlers have set up home there.  They are delighted.

The community’s leader, Khusairi Raja Muda, said the residents felt they were in danger. “No one goes out at night,” he said.  He said that Agam and Pangeran (two of the tigers)  roamed around and slept in the school compound. “They also attacked our poultry,” he said.

Better poultry than people, but what on earth were the tigers doing in the school?

It turns out that the conservationists in the area are opposed to the tiger release program, which is paid for by a local businessman who just happens to own the area where the tigers were released and runs a tourist and conservation company.    There is a large illegal population in the reserve, who are happy to be moved elsewhere away from the tigers, but there seems to be some difficulty because they are illegally settled.  Various authorities all agree that something should and will be done, and it is the responsibility of another authority.

The agency releasing the tigers cheerfully admitted that one of the tigresses was a man-eater and they were keeping her in captivity until they had trained her not to eat people.  I didn’t know you could do that.  But I am sure the villagers will be delighted to know that the tiger has changed her stripes, to mix metaphors.

“If they see a tiger entering their village, they’ve been asked to notify the forest officials,” said a spokesman.

I must admit that this last sentence made me laugh out loud – I bet they will!  There is an alternative though.

Spells and prayers are all that are needed to keep people safe from potentially man-eating tigers, according to Aceh’s last remaining tiger tamer.  Sarwani Sabi, 65, has since Sunday evening been religiously uttering special mantras in the Jambo Papeuen village of southern Aceh, where residents have been unable to sleep easy after learning that a hungry Sumatran tiger has been roaming their streets at night.

“Tamer Sarwani is doing his best to keep the tiger from descending on the village by using the traditional method of prayers and special mantras. And in the past two nights the tiger hasn’t been sighted,” Syafwan, the head of South Aceh’s Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA), told the Jakarta Globe, adding that southern Aceh was lucky to have an expert like Sarwani on hand.  Syafwan added that Sarwani had also been sent off to East Kluet district where worried residents have also sighted a tiger.

Abu Bakar Chekmat, BKSDA chief, said that the province’s problem was the lack of any other tiger tamers.  “We are facing problems in the form of tigers and elephants.  Sarwani is the only tamer we have and he’s getting old. We’re lucky he’s still so energetic,” Abu Bakar said.

He said that catching the tiger was not part of their plans. “We won’t capture it because we’ll only have to release it back into the wild again. We just chase it off, back into its habitat, using the proper method of prayers and mantras.”

One can readily understand the reticence of local people to having wild tigers prowling around at night.  I had a similar feeling when I was at Camp  Tiamang deep in the reserve and woke at 3am jet-lagged and thirsty and wandered off to get some water without thinking.  I was enjoying the stars till I suddenly realised I was in tiger country and rapidly retired to my hut!

All of this may suggest that I am not in favour of returning animals to the wild.  Far from it.  My concern is that the operations are frequently not properly thought through, and do not have the whole-hearted backing of the local people which is absolutely essential for proper conservation.  Before releasing animals into the wild, you must ensure that the release site is suitable for the animals, it can support them, they will not upset the ecology and they will thrive.  Just like gardening, you have to prepare the ground before planting.  This is what is done in Leuser, and I worry about our excess animals, where we can release them, for we will have to move them on in future years assuming we win our battles with the loggers.  It is not enough just to save Leuser, we will need to expand in future years and save other forests, slowly building up the ecology till it can support the larger animals, particularly the apex predators.  All over the globe we need to save the forests first, then the animals will follow naturally.  But we will always need a solution for the excess animals.  And that will be a huge problem if we are successful in our current efforts.  Hopefully it will be a nice problem.

On the BBC in the UK there was a program called Panorama on Monday 22nd Feb which looked into the palm oil situation and revealed many of the facts to a wider audience.  Thankfully.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_8523000/852

It concentrated on Borneo rather than Sumatra and showed many of the salient points, not least how damaging the plantations are to EVERYONE on the planet RIGHT NOW due to the massive amounts of trapped methane and carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere.

There were a couple of points missed.

Oil Palms are hugely damaging to the immediate ecosystem because they require vast amounts of water – the trees occur naturally in swamps, yet the plantations are frequently in areas which are relatively dry and so require irrigation, water being taken from other areas for the purpose.  The fertiliser placed on the trees gets washed into the water table and pollutes it, so it is a double whammy for the local environment.  Then the fertiliser – urea is the main one, which is manufactured from crude oil.  It takes approximately 10 tonnes of crude oil to make enough fertiliser to create less than 2 tonnes of palm oil.  Wow.  That’s energy efficiency, isn’t it?

The second point was regarding the incredibly sad rescue of young orang utan.  The program said they were being rehabilitated.  You cant.  Firstly the young orang-utan were clearly physically deformed from long lack of arboreal exercise and incorrect diet, so they would always have difficulty moving about in the wild, but the main problem is one I have referred to before.  Baby orang-utan spend the first 5-7 years with mum, learning where the fruit trees are.  For the forest trees live in a resource poor environment, and only gather sufficient energy to fruit every other year, or even every three years.  They are spread out through the forest, so the orang-utan has to be clever and remember where they are and when they will fruit so he arrives at the right place at the right time, not having visited the tree for perhaps 3 years.

If the orang-utan is either moved from his own forest or is not with his mother while he is learning where the food is, then he will not know where to find food.  He cannot move into a new forest and survive – which is why it takes an incredibly long time for orang-utan to repopulate areas of forest which are regenerated.  In the rehabilitation centres, they have to continue to feed released orang-utan, often for the rest of their lives.  This is where you can easily visit and see ‘wild’ orang-utan.

So once again we have the real answer – preserve the forest to save the orang-utan, don’t let them go in the first place as this is one animal that you CANNOT get back once it is gone.  There are 8,100 Sumatran Orang-utan left, maybe 11,000 Bornean Orang-utan.  7,500 of the Sumatran are in Leuser, which is the largest contiguous population and relatively safe.  We don’t know how many sub-species there were, but the Sibolga one, a beautiful intelligent ape, very red with long fingers, has gone.

It was heartening to read that the supermarket chain Sainsburys is using palm oil from sustainable sources in all its products, though Unilever’s answers in the interview were disgraceful and evasive.  However I am more than a little baffled as to who proclaims the palm oil to be sustainable.  How can it be sustainable?  I suppose if the plantation is in a swamp, there is a chance, but the yield will be fairly low.  And something must have gone before you can plant oil palms – somehow I rather doubt it was farmland.  There is supposed to be an organic oil palm plantation in Ghana, and some more in the Amazon.  Malaysia claim theirs are sustainable and I fear this is where Sainsburys are getting their palm oil from.  The Malaysian forests are virtually all gone – replaced with Oil Palms.  Not all in swamps, either.  They use a lot of fertiliser.  Being the Far East, how can you tell if palm oil from Borneo and Sumatra is mixed in with the Malaysian palm oil?  How can you stop that happening?  I would not like to certify that.  But then I would not consider Malaysian Palm Oil to be sustainable because it is a consequence of destroyed and ravished forests.

The only glimmer of light is that there are alternatives to palm oil, good alternatives which provide cheaper oil without the fertiliser requirements – which is key, but perhaps gives a clue as to why they have not been developed.  Who pays for the research into new products?

Rex Sumner

A rare Sumatran rhino in an Indonesian wildlife sanctuary will give birth in May to only the fourth calf of the endangered species born in captivity in more than a century, a scientist said Thursday.

The wild Indonesian-born mother, Ratu, was mated with Cincinnati Zoo-born Andalas, who nine years ago became the first of three rhinos born in captivity in the past 112 years, International Rhino Foundation executive director Susie Ellis said.

The calf is due to be born in a wildlife reserve on Sumatra island on May 11 after a 15-month pregnancy, Ellis said.

Andalas was moved in 2007 from the Los Angeles Zoo, where he grew up, to the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary where he was gradually introduced to his mate.

The wild Sumatran rhino population has more than halved in the past 15 years and now numbers about 200, Ellis said. Another 10 live in captivity, including five in the 250-acre (100-hectare) Sumatran sanctuary, which is funded by the foundation.

That’s the recent press release and we are delighted to hear about the pregnancy.  Even though the entire programme has been judged a failure (not by us, but by many conservationists).

Andalas was the first Sumatran Rhino born in captivity for 112 years and the result of a scheme in which 40 captive rhinos were taken into captivity for breeding.  At the time, I was very much in favour of this solution, however I was wrong.  They failed to breed and more than 75% died.  7 were sent to the US, three survived and they finally cracked the breeding program, with Andalas born in 2001, Suci in 2004 and Harry in 2007, all in Cincinnati Zoo with the help of special hormone treatments.  The ones in a Malaysian  centre all died, a disease outbreak killing the last ones in 2004.

Three births from 1 female, from 40 specimens taken from the wild, with more than 30 premature deaths.

Sumatran Rhino in Bengkung, Leuser

Back in 1990 we had 100 rhinos in Leuser, while a large reserve in central Sumatra had 500.  Fast forward to the present and in Leuser we have 120 rhino, an EXCELLENT return considering the slow reproduction rate (about 3 years per baby per mum) while unfortunately the other reserve lost all their rhinos by 2001.  In fact, while there is the odd rhino scattered around the rest of the island (they are pretty much certainly gone from Malaysia and Borneo), there aren’t enough to make breeding populations outside of Leuser.

Again, we come back to the one proven way of saving the animals – save the forests.  Get the legislation in place, get the population behind you, patrol the forest, good ties with the police.  Get the police to make the arrests and ensure the poachers go to court.

This may sound simple but it involves huge amounts of work.  And funding.  It is not glamorous work, no running firefights with poachers, no cuddling cute animals, but it WORKS.

This is how Leuser was saved and it is the reason it is the only successful reserve in the area.  We need other conservation organisations to learn from Leuser and replicate it.

Rex Sumner

The Indonesian head of protection and conservation, Darori, has announced a new plan whereby wealthy people can keep a pet tiger if they post a $100,000 bond and keep it in a cage at least 10 x 6 metres.

“We hope that this program will eradicate poaching as a means of
fulfilling a high demand by rich people in Indonesia … who want to
have tigers as pets or dead tigers for their home decoration,” he said.

The animals will remain the property of the State and offspring re-introduced into the wild.

Although I am a little suspicious of this plan, I don’t want to throw it out instantly because it is new and I haven’t seen all the reasoning behind it.  Maybe it will serve to get the wealthy consumers of tiger products to divert their attention from wild animals.  But where will they get the pets from in the first place?

Most of the 300 remaining wild Sumatran Tigers are in Leuser Ecosystem, perhaps 250 of them.  It is a large area, over 250,000 sq km, and it is well protected by BPKEL.  The local headmen are behind the reserve and the local people report any poaching to BPKEL who actively prosecute poachers, using the police to apprehend them.  The courts now give out sentences which are successfully deterring poaching and the decline in wild numbers has stopped.  The only problem is funding, which FFTF is attempting to rectify, in that BPKEL do not have enough money to ensure every case goes to court.  They need assistance, either financial or from other agencies who will ensure all prosecutions go ahead – not just poaching but to all the threats to the forest.

There is enough room in Leuser for the expanding population of tigers, and they breed at 3 per tigress per year, BUT what happens then?  Young tigers will leave mum and go off looking for an area of their own.  They will either have to kick an old tiger out of it’s range or claim an untouched one.

So inevitably the time will come when tigers start to move out of the reserve.

What do we do then?  The locals will stop being supportive of the reserve if tigers come out and eat their animals and friends – which they will.

We cannot catch the tigers and move them to an unpopulated part of the reserve for ever – we will run out of unpopulated parts.

Shooting them is not a solution, for it will open the floodgates and we will lose all the tigers.

Do they expect to use these tigers as pets?  Fully adult tigers with a suspicion of people?  I cannot see anybody wanting to keep a tiger as a pet that has not been raised by hand from a cub.

We will need OTHER areas of forest, without tigers but healthy populations of prey animals, to which to move the tigers.  These will need to be reserves where there is strong enforcement.  That isn’t available at the moment, so the challenge to the Indonesian Government, and indeed all governments with tigers, is not to allow pet keeping, but to ensure there are other reserves, secure reserves, where excess tigers can survive peacefully.  This will encourage eco-tourism, re-forestation, prevent flooding and similar natural disasters and allow people to live in harmony with their environment.

And the tiger to flourish.

Gong Xi Fat Choy! Happy Chinese New Year and welcome to the Year of the Tiger.

Sumatran Tiger taken by remote camera at night in Leuser

Let’s take a moment to consider the plight of the Tiger, of which there are barely 5000 of all species left in the wild. There are or were 9 types of Tiger. The furthest east was the Bali Tiger, the last one being shot in 1937 although more were rumoured to live in the reserve till 1963 when a titanic eruption of gas and ash from Mt Agung killed them. It is extinct, gone for ever.

The Java Tiger could argue to be the most important Tiger for the fossil record indicates that Tigers evolved on Java. No matter, they are extinct. I remember seeing the pug marks of one in East Java in 1981 and the park ranger telling me that he still had three, none of which he had ever seen but knew intimately from their tracks. In the 1990’s the rhino poachers rushed out of Udjung Kulon reserve amidst claims that one had been killed by a tiger, but none were ever seen.

The Sumatran Tiger has interesting genetic markers which may mean it is evolving into a brand new species, i.e. not a tiger! It will need to move fast, though, as there are only 400 left. While some are spread out through Sumatra, 300 of them are in the Leuser Ecosystem reserve where they are safe, protected by the laws of Independent Aceh. Poaching has nearly ceased entirely thanks to the efforts of BPKEL and with three cubs a year the tiger can rapidly increase it’s population. The problems will come when the population becomes too large for the reserve – will there be any other reserves that will accept the excess? Can BPKEL continue to keep the poachers at bay as the demand for tiger parts will rise during the Year of the Tiger?

The Indochinese Tiger has a population of 1200 animals, spread over 7 countries, though in 2004 it was decided that the 500 odd in Malaysia were a different sub-species. Because the population is so fragmented, there is little hope for this species in the wild.

The South China Tiger is interesting – maybe a couple of animals left in the wild (there was a huge scandal recently about a photoshopped photo taken by a farmer) but there are 5000 tigers being bred in captivity for their parts. This raises a dilemma. This farming of tigers has undoubtably saved the wild tiger from extinction, by providing the required body parts at a cheaper price than wild ones can be obtained. At the same time there is a large genetic pool to keep the species viable – although no doubt the breeders are busy crossing the different species to gain certain characteristics. However Chinese animal breeders are not noted for their kindness to animals, and it is likely that many of these tigers are kept in appalling conditions, subject to terrible cruelty.

There are perhaps 400 Siberian Tigers left, however their range is contiguous so this is one large population which means that as long as the reserve is looked after, the Siberian Tiger can continue.

Not much is known about the Caspian Tiger, which had the widest range through Central Asia, though recent reseach indicates it was actually a Siberian Tiger. It became extinct in the 1950’s.

The Bengal Tiger has the largest remaining wild population of tigers, over 3000 of which the vast majority are in India. This is thanks to the huge worldwide conservation programme started in the 1960’s which really did save the tiger. Many tiger reserves were set up with draconian laws – today there are shoot to kill policies in these reserves. If you don’t have a permit and you are in the reserve the rangers will shoot you without any questions. It is still not enough. Some of these Tiger reserves have no tigers in them. The reason is quite simple – the reserves are too small, there is no corridors from reserve to reserve and the people are not involved. Instead the reserves have become enclaves, surrounded by starving, land hungry people. The great lesson here is that you must involve the local people in conservation – they must want and back it. This is not hard, but it needs careful planning and execution. This is also how the west can support conservation in tropical countries – by helping to support economies that support conservation. We are starting to do that with Fair Trade brands, but we need to expand these to include conservation of the forests – something the whole world needs.

Please take the time to write to Fair Trade brands and ask them to also work with communities that promote conservation of the forests and the animals within them, avoid products with palm oil content (palm oil is a dreadful force for the destruction of forests and animals) and get involved with Force for the Forest, and other conservation organisations with a similar message, in getting this message across.

Rex Sumner
Force for the Forest

Avatar is not just a fun blockbuster movie, but it contains some real messages.  Particularly ones relevant to the rainforest.

However, as is the way of Hollywood, the points are made in broad strokes that will be missed by the main offenders and upset many major supporters of the forest!  Western Industry is very, very rarely the bad guy when it comes to conservation.  Indeed, the Leuser Ecosystem would not exist today if it were not for Exxon Mobil and the sponsorship they provided to Mike Griffiths in the 1980’s – and they still help Leuser to this day.

The big industrial companies are highly regulated, not just by their own governments but also by the governments of the countries in which they work.  They need to be whiter than white and are constantly in receipt of blame for the actions of others.

The real bad guys are two types – the Western Consumers who create the demand and the unregulated companies.  These companies are often family run and in western eyes corrupt.  They are very single minded in their approach, rarely look to the long-term future and if there are laws and regulations blocking their path, consider these simply to be ways of increasing the cost of ‘licences’ to extract the resources they require, or build a road or a damn.  And of course they wouldn’t dream of ‘wasting’ money by repairing the damage afterwards, but leave gaping wounds in the earth.

There are many tragic stories of native people who have lost their entire culture thanks to exploitation.  One of the saddest is that of the Iban people of Sarawak, who maintained their way of life right up into the Eighties, still living in Longhouses in the forest although speaking fluent English (a legacy of the rule of the Brooke family) and being well educated.  But the forests have gone from around them, there is nothing left and they have to go to the cities to find work as they cannot live in the traditional way without the forest.  Avatar could almost be based on them, except the loggers won.

But don’t forget that the rainforests and natural resources of the world would not be over-exploited if it were not for the demand created by Western Consumers.  Meranti or ‘Philippine Mahogany’ was widely used for squash court floors and is straight out of the rainforest.  Palm oil is responsible for vast tracts of deforestation.  The list is endless.  Watch your consumption to save the rainforests and prevent the real life occurrences of Avatar….

I don’t know who coined the phrase ‘Global Warming’ but it is a very unfortunate choice of words to describe the phenomenon.  Here in Europe we have one of the coldest and earliest winters for a long time, and consequently many people are treating the whole idea of Global Warming as a hoax.

Understandably.

The reality is that mankind has busily been polluting the planet in which we live while at the same time happily removing all the self-cleaning mechanisms.

This is not something new.  The ocean floor in many places is covered to a depth of several inches with clinker, the ash thrown out by the steamships as they used up the coal.  Who knows what species became extinct as a consequence of the steam age?  Vast reaches of the ocean bed are now a desert.  What impact does this have on the ocean cleaning itself?  This isn’t something we as a race have worried about, because we haven’t seen any consequences.  Or have we?

Right now we are pumping into the atmosphere more and more pollutants, and cutting down the forests, both tropical and temperate, that used to remove pollutants from the air.

It’s all very well cutting down our carbon production, but would it not make more sense to help the earth handle the pollution more effectively by re-planting the forests?  Or, perish the thought, even both?  Tackle the problem from both sides?

Meanwhile, the northern hemisphere is in the grip of an arctic winter and thoughts of global warming evaporate as few realise that the southern hemisphere is undergoing a heatwave.  And herein lies the dreadful proof of what we are really doing to the planet – we are removing it’s ability to regulate temperature and climate.  This is why we are seeing extremes of climate, extremes which are only going to get worse.

We need to not just reduce the pollution, but to increase every countries ability to absorb and cleanse the pollution i.e. forests.

Our close cousin is an incredibly intelligent animal. Did you know that he keeps a map in his head, which tells him where the fruit trees are fruiting and when – even more difficult when you consider that in the resource-poor environment that is the rainforest, some trees only fruit once in four years!
The young Orang-utan spends the first five to seven years with mum, during which time he learns where the trees are and when they fruit, building up his mind map. This is why it is not possible to rehabilitate an Orang-utan to the wild. Captive orang-utans were always babies when caught (by murdering mum) and brought up by people, thus not developing a mind map. In the rehabilitation centre at Bohorok, the orang-utan does go back into the forest, but for the rest of his life he will always come back for food hand-outs as his lack of knowledge fails him in finding food. And he lives a good forty to fifty years.
This is also why ‘sustainable logging’ is rubbish – it murders 60% of the Orang-utan in the forest, because it takes out some of the fruit trees – and there is no alternative in their map. They starve to death looking for another fruiting tree and waiting for their next one to ripen.
The orang-utan is a very tough, strong animal. Living in the trees as he does, he actually has four arms and no legs. The hunters after babies to sell as pets will need to shoot mum about ten times before she actually falls out of the tree, and she can still hang on with two broken arms.
The only good news is that in the Leuser ecosystem that is home to most of the remaining Sumatran Orang-utan, the local population knows this and report to our rangers anybody who has an illegal baby orang-utan. There has only been one case so far this year, which is a BIG drop, so we are winning this war.
It’s too late for a lovely Orang-utan sub-species that lived near Sibolga in Sumatra. Dark red hair, long fingers, highly intelligent, none have been seen for many a year. But in Leuser we have 7,500 of the main Sumatran species, and there are another 600 to the north that we aim to bring into the reserve next year. They are safe. It is a different story in Borneo, where there may be 11,000 Orang-utan, but they are scattered and in small bits of forest, reduced to eating oil palm nuts. These fractured populations are not really viable. A female Orang-utan has a baby about once every 5 to 7 years, and will have at most 7 in her lifetime, so populations grow very slowly.
How do you recognise an Orang-utan researcher? By the missing fingers…. Occasionally we have had to relocate Orang-utan. We would tranquillise the ape high in the tree with a dart gun. As he gets woozy and sleepy, being very smart he comes down to the ground, where we can throw a net over him. These nets have centimetre thick, heavy nylon cords, but he will still bite through them like cotton. And when the researcher thinks he is asleep, and can start taking his measurements and samples, he is often just awake enough to nip the nearest finger….
Find out more about the work we are doing in Sumatra, where we have saved 7,500 Orang-utan in 25,000 square kilometres of forest, the last remnant of the great expanse that coated SE Asia. www.forcefortheforest.com

Release of two captured tigers into Ulu Masen and Leuser Ecosystem Leuser.
December 2008

Background
In the last two years the poaching of tigers in Aceh has increased greatly. In 2008 alone, at least 20 tigers were taken and the real figure could be twice as high as this. The Aceh tiger population is the largest remaining and may well be the last viable population left in Sumatra. The capturing of tigers at the current rate for whatever reason (for trade, to prevent livestock deaths etc) is unsustainable and must be halted. In the meantime tigers are still being captured under the jurisdiction of KSDA. If these tigers are relocated outside of Aceh or sold to zoos or safari parks, the result to the existing Aceh
population is the same as if the tigers were shot dead. They can no longer contribute their genes to the population.

The interim solution is to relocate captured tigers and to relocated them as soon as possible deeper into the forests of Aceh, where it is hoped they will carve out new ranges and continue to exist in the wild.

In December of 2008, two tigers, captured with the support of KSDA , were being held in orangutan cages at the KDSA office in Banda Aceh. Of the two tigers, one was a male caught two months before in Nagan Raya, and the other, a female, caught less the two weeks previously in Jantho. BPKEL called a series of meetings with the participation of FFI, LIF, WCS, YEL, Vesswic, Yayasan Ekosistem, LBH Lingkungan, Tipereska, and KSDA. A decision was reached that if the tigers were in sufficiently good health they should be relocated – one to the forests of Ulu Masen and the other to the interior of the Leuser Ecosystem.

Certain other conditions would have to be met. Both tigers should be affixed with satellite collars to allow round-the-clock monitoring of the released animals, transport boxes would have to designed and constructed, a helicopter would have to be mobilised, and strict protocols would be put in place while preparing the tiger for removal from the cages at the KSDA office. In addition, teams involving LIF, FFI, and KSDA would be formed to respond quickly if the released tigers were to enter into a local village.

Preparations

After the first meeting BPKEL went ahead and secured a helicopter from Eastindo, and visited local government leaders in Pidie Jaya, Pidie, and Aceh Timur to brief them on the planned releases and to seek written endorsement for the work. All district governments were fully supportive. Meanwhile the Yayasan Ekosistem Lestari (YEL) made two transfer boxes (one for each release) and transported them to the respective bases of operation. The Denver Zoo provide two satellite collars and these were given preliminary field testing by FFI. Both FFI and LIF pledged large amounts of money for the helicopter charter as well as accommodation and logistical backup for the field operatives, and many miscellaneous expenses as well. Both organizations also provided significant technical inputs and advice. A representative of WCS who had previous experience in releasing tigers in the Russian Far
East provided sound advice on the readiness of the tigers to be released . In his opinion both tigers were in good enough condition to undergo relocation. BKSDA asked for additional funds.

First release (Ulu Masen)

At a penultimate meeting in Banda Aceh it was jointly decided that the female tiger (about 1.5 to 2 years in age) would be released in Ulu Masen – specifically in the vicinity of Blang Raweu near the Pidie/Pidie Jaya border. Blang Raweu was selected as a release site on the basis that it had a high density of ungulates, was relatively isolated from any settlements, had abundant water and plenty of cover. It was also within a hour’s flying time (by helicopter from Banda Aceh) – a practical limit from a logistics point of view.

The release was scheduled for December 21, so several days before an FFI field team went out to Blang Raweu to prepare a landing site for the helicopter. Once confirmation had been received that the location had been prepared, an advance party flew out to inspect the site and to assess its condition.

The advance party was left on site to expand the landing area to accommodate the transfer box as well as the helicopter. The night before the planned release, a final coordination meeting was held at the BKSDA office in Banda Aceh, in which data sharing agreements were concluded and joint responsibility for the release effort was officially accepted. BKSDA would not release the tigers from the holding cages at the KDSA office until all pledges had been made.

The morning of December 21 revealed almost perfect weather and the first party consisting representatives of KSDA and FFI flew to the release site to make final preparations and to evacuate the field staff. At the same time the female tiger was tranquilized in her cage, given blood checks, and fitted with a radio collar. She was then placed in the transfer box which was transported to the air force base at Banda Aceh airport. About mid morning the helicopter returned to Banda Aceh, picked up the transfer box using its sling mechanism and immediately flew back to the release site with a vet from Vesswic in
attendance.

At the release site the helicopter placed the box on location and landed a short distance away. Less than an hour later the vet judged the tigress ready for release and all remaining personnel boarded the
helicopter with one person operating the rope to open the door of the transfer box. Within a few minutes of opening the tigress poked her head out of the box and in a few bounds disappeared in the nearby forest. The helicopter returned to Banda Aceh.

Follow up

Since the release the tigress has travelled more than 50 kilometer in a broad oval which has almost brought her back to the place from where she was released. On examination of the data it appears that she has made at least two major kills during this time.

Second release (Leuser Ecosystem)

The base of operations for the second release – for the male tiger of approximately two years – was Langsa, owing to its proximity to any of three potential release sites. A liaison team was sent ahead to Langsa to meet with the heads of police, military and local government leaders.
The transfer box, fuel drums, and other logistics were delivered to Langsa on the 25th of December in anticipation of a release date of the 27th of December – a date predicted to provide good weather.

Senior representatives BPKEL and LIF reached Langsa on 26th of December and met with the local officials. The representatives also met with senior management of PTP1 to secure a safe base for the helicopter operations on the edge of Langsa township. A team of LIF and BPKEL personnel used the helicopter to view potential release sites that would allow for an open approach for the helicopter as well as room to locate the transfer box. The team decided on a location near the Gayo Lues /Aceh Timur border on a braided stream bed.

On the night of the 26th a final coordination meeting was held in Banda Aceh. Most of the final details were quickly agreed but once again KSDA threatened to not release the tigers unless YLI agreed to pay
additional charges for things that had done well before the release project was even considered.

Eventually the situation was resolved, and the tiger was tranquilized shortly after sunset and was on its way in the transfer box to Langsa, where it arrived in the early morning of the December 27.

The operation began at 7.00 am from the PTP1 headquarters on the edge of Langsa township when an advance team of representatives of BPKEL, LIF, and KSDA flew to the release site to make final arrangements, and to confirm river conditions.

The tiger was sedated and had its GPS collar reaffixed so as to ensure that it would remain in place. It was then returned to the transfer box and air-lifted to the release site where it arrived by helicopter, carrying only the pilot and a Vesswic vet, at about 11 am.

After the vet had given the “ green light” for releasing the tiger (about 30 minutes after landing) the door of the transfer box was opened remotely (by a 40 meter length of rope) and soon the tiger appeared and cautiously made its way across the dry gravel beds to the adjacent forest.

The full team then returned by helicopter to Langsa – a distance of about 60 kilometers.

Follow up

Since the tiger was released it has moved more than 10 kilometers from the release site. It may well have made a kill shortly after release because it repeatedly returned to a ridge close to the release site (1
km) over a period of five days. Rusa deer (Cervus unicolor) are abundant in the area and would, if killed by a tiger, provide sufficient food for this period of time. Continuous monitoring continues and
will so until the tiger settles into a stable home range.

Lessons learned

• The most important lesson learned was that it is possible to do tiger releases in Aceh and to monitor the movements of the tigers thereafter with good accuracy.
• The second lesson is that good collaboration and integration of several participating organizations, particularly the conservation NGOs active in Aceh, is a very important component of success. Furthermore this growing cooperation of these partner organizations, along with the
development of mutual trust and confidence, will be of great help in dealing with future conservation challenges.
• The cost of undertaking each relocation was in the order of Rp 120,000,000. This is expensive and may not give the best value for the money outlaid. Relocating captured tigers should thus be seen as a last resort if tigers have already been captured and are healthy (and safe) enough to return to the wild.
• Bureaucratic delays put both release operations in danger of failure. The schedules were designed to give sufficient lead time to do the releases properly, but were also designed to capitalize on windows of good weather, and to minimize the costs of helicopter standby time. Also the people involved in making the operations a success also had tight schedules that had to be honored. Loss of these people at critical stages would have resulted in cancellation of the operations. Thanks to
serious compromises, both releases eventually went ahead as scheduled.

Recommendations

1. A major campaign should be launched to help communities neighbouring conservation areas to better co-exist with tigers (as they have for thousands of years). WCS has apparently begun a program to encourage local farmers in south Aceh to build tiger proof enclosures to house their livestock at night. Such efforts should be increased and additional solutions devised if necessary.

2. The campaign described above should also include a clear message that trapping of tigers is illegal and will be dealt with according to the law.
3. Considering the bureaucratic delays that almost resulted in the cancellation of both releases, it is recommended that the BKSDA be relieved of its current responsibilities in line with the spirit of UU No 11, 2006.
4. To replace the current poor facilities for holding confiscated or captured tigers (and other wildlife), a special rescue facility will be developed by BPKEL which will become the sole authorized holding site for rescue animals pending their future release or other approved
treatments.