This is the story of how Indonesia is losing its spots. In a recent paper published in Nature Conservation, researchers found that the archipelagic nation has a significant illegal trade in two regional leopard species: the Javan leopard (Panthera pardus melas) and the Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi). This trafficking could pose a serious threat […]
Tag: Sumatran tiger
French couple paid $7,000 for tiger cub they thought was Savannah cat
No wonder they were purr-plexed. A couple in France thought they bought a special kitty — only to discover they had taken a tiger cub home, according to a report. The unidentified couple from Le Havre told police they stumbled across an online ad two years ago for a Savannah cat, which is a cross between […]
Tigers threatened by a vast network of planned roads across Asia
The Bukit Tigapuluh landscape in Indonesia has been sliced and diced by roads, opening its forests to threats from the outside. As forest vanishes in the region, so too does its population of endangered Sumatran tigers. A rapidly expanding road network in Asia threatens to usher in similar problems for tigers (Panthera tigris) elsewhere in […]
A tiger refuge in Sumatra gets a reprieve from road building
The rainforests that once carpeted Indonesia’s Sumatra Island are among the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems, home to iconic species like the Sumatran tiger, rhino and orangutan. They are also among the most imperiled; in just two decades, between 1990 and 2010, Sumatra lost 40 percent of its old-growth forest. The tigers, rhinos and orangutans that […]
Protect Endangered Birds, Rhinos, and Tigers – 7 Petitions You Should Sign This Week!
It’s horrible to hear about animal abuse cases or read the ways humans are endangering many species. Fortunately, there are things we can do to speak for them. One of the ways we can help and lend our voices to good causes is by signing petitions. Such petitions are sent to people in powerful positions […]
Christmas ad conundrum: Is a palm oil boycott the way to save apes?
A Christmas advertisement deemed too political to air in the U.K. but that has been viewed more than 70 million times online has rekindled the debate about how to save orangutans from going extinct: should consumers boycott products containing palm oil? In one corner is the British supermarket chain Iceland, which earlier this year announced […]
Indonesia’s Aceh sees harshest penalty yet for a wildlife crime
A court in Indonesia’s Aceh province has sentenced two men to four years behind bars for attempting to sell a tiger skin, in the toughest ever penalty handed down for a wildlife crime there. Sarkawi Bin Warigo, 41, and Sabaruddin Bin M. Yusak, 45, were arrested last July. During the trial, they refused to be […]
Sumatran tiger blamed for killing two people is captured alive after marathon hunt
JAKARTA — Authorities in Indonesia have captured a Sumatran tiger blamed for killing two people earlier this year. They have moved the female tiger, nicknamed Bonita, to a wildlife rehabilitation center in West Sumatra province. The capture of Bonita on April 20 in Riau province marked the end of the “longest rescue and evacuation effort […]