Indonesia seeks more evidence that Javan tiger not yet extinct
In a DNA study released last
week, scientists at the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) of
Indonesia said a strand of tiger hair sighted in a West Java village in 2019
matched some characteristics of the tiger, which is native to the Southeast
Asian nation.
Satyawan Pudyatmoko, the
ministry official who oversees conservation, said the research has sparked
speculation that the Javan tiger is still in the wild, adding that the ministry
is making efforts to verify that.
Measures include setting camera
traps around the area and seeking advice from genetics experts, he said.
Previously, the Javan and Bali tigers have been declared extinct by the
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the global authority on
wildlife extinction risk. Only the Sumatran tiger remains, and it is considered
endangered. Researchers have cited poaching and deforestation are among the causes
driving the extinction of these species of tiger.
However, in 2019, villagers spotted what they thought was a Javan tiger
and collected its hair from a fence and found scratch marks./.