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.
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.