Images of a female Sumatran tiger and her two cubs have been captured by video cameras installed in the jungle of Indonesia’s Sumatra island, the conservation group World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said Thursday.
It was the first time that the WWF has recorded evidence of tiger breeding in central Sumatra, giving researchers new insight into the endangered animal’s behaviour, the group said.
The film, captured a month after the cameras were installed deep inside tiger habitat, showed all three tigers approaching the camera, sniffing it and walking away.
“This footage of a mother with two cubs that seem to be healthy is cause for celebration,” Barney Long, WWF tiger scientist, said in a statement.
“But the challenge is to ensure a future for these cubs - and the rest of the world’s remaining wild tigers,” he said.
There are as few as 400 Sumatran tigers left in Indonesia and they are under relentless pressure from poaching and clearing of their habitat, the WWF said.
Long said there might be only as few as 3,200 tigers left in the wild around the world.
The WWF launched a yearlong campaign this year to stop the disappearance of tigers across Asia and double the number of wild tigers by 2022.
The group has also urged international paper companies and palm oil plantations operating on Sumatra to help protect forests under their control that are home to tigers and other endangered species.
“When these cubs are old enough to leave their mother, which will be soon, they will have to find their own territory,” Long said.
“Where will they go?” he asked. “With so much deforestation and poaching in Sumatra, tigers have a very hard time avoiding encounters with people.”
Infrared-triggered camera traps are activated upon sensing body heat in their path. They have become an important tool in identifying which areas of the forest are used by tigers and to identify individual animals to monitor the population, the WWF said.
DPA
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