We’re celebrating our partners’ amazing mahi for tigers

Here at Auckland Zoo, we can’t imagine a world without Sumatran tigers and we’re sure you feel the same way!

These magnificent big cats are vital apex predators and their presence in their rainforest habitat is an important indicator of this ecosystem’s health and biodiversity. 

It’s why, with your help (via a portion of your entry ticket and the Zoo’s Conservation Fund), we continue to support two incredible tiger conservation partners - WildCats Conservation Alliance (WildCats) and the Sumatran Ranger Project (SRP).

We’re giving them a special shout-out today on International Tiger Day (29 July). Their respective mahi to ensure the future of this ‘Critically Endangered’ (IUCN Red List) big cat - whose population is estimated to be as few as 400-500 in the wild, is both challenging and rewarding and making a difference.

The Zoo supports WildCats’ Tiger Protection Project that works to protect and conserve these tigers in Kerinci Seblat National Park in central/south Sumatra. At an incredible 1.83 million ha, it’s the largest protected park in Sumatra (the world’s third biggest island!)  and home to at least 166 Sumatran tigers.

Sadly, humans remain the greatest threat to tigers – through illegal poaching/trade and illegally destroying rainforest habitat for agriculture like oil palm plantations. It’s why this project focuses its mahi on patrolling the forest, removing tiger snares, intelligence gathering and collaborating with authorities on wildlife crime investigation, law enforcement and human-tiger mitigation.

In recent years, with implementing partners Lingkar Inisiatif, they’ve been taking a successful religious approach to forest-crime by hunters and reoffenders. A Fatwa (a ruling on a point of Islamic/sharia law) prohibits hunting and trading in tigers and other endangered species, and while not legally binding it carries a lot of weight in the Muslim community. (Indonesia’s population is over 87% Muslim).

Since 2020, this religious approach has resulted in 20 ex-hunters - some of whom have killed a great many tigers - publicly renouncing hunting and handing over hunting equipment to national park authorities. A guardianship programme is further supporting these ex-hunters to become conservation allies.

Lingkar Inisiatif director Iswadi says these ex-hunters join the Lingkar team on forest protection patrols and while doing so receive daily expenses, along with food and equipment.

While currently only a short-term empowerment programme, it hopes wider support will enable it to achieve more long-term solutions to create sustainable alternative livelihoods for these people.

Complimenting WildCats’ efforts, in north Sumatra along the border of Gunung Leuser National Park, the Sumatran Ranger Project (SRP) is also achieving wins for Sumatran tigers (and many other wildlife species) and the forest-edge communities it works alongside.

This park is part of the wider Leuser Ecosystem (one of our planet’s most biodiverse habitats) and home to the world’s second and only other viable wild Sumatran tiger population.

SRP founder, Auckland Zoo’s very own deputy curator of mammals, Amy Robbins, says among many ranger activities aimed at supporting wildlife, the environment, and people, is the construction of predator-proof livestock corrals for forest-edge communities.

“Since 2020 an idea that was initially met with community scepticism has turned into a highly successful human-wildlife conflict solution, and in a little over three years we have built 14 corrals. These are a highly cost-effective and practical solution to protecting the livelihoods of locals grazing livestock along the national park boundary, and in preventing retaliatory attacks on tigers that happen following tiger predation events,” says Amy.

“When the entire wild Sumatran tiger population is only in the low to mid hundreds, every one of these individual big cats matters!”  

SRP rangers are all local people - inspirational and highly skilled men and women who are going above and beyond to achieve great outcomes for their country’s wildlife and people.

SRP’s portfolio of work along the edge of Gunung Leuser National Park is diverse and is supporting the conservation of many species – from tigers and orangutans to elephants and rhinoceros to name just a few. Activities range from scientific data collection and deactivating and destroying traps and snares, to community outreach/ education and human-wildlife conflict mitigation to supporting communities to achieve sustainable livelihoods and live and thrive in harmony with nature.