Three-Paw Sumatran Tiger Puts Grad Student in International Spotlight
A wildlife science graduate student made international news last summer when an endangered three-pawed Sumatran tiger was caught on camera in a protected wildlife park in Indonesia. Sunarto, a wildlife biologist working with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), said he believed the tiger was the same one that lost a paw escaping from an illegal trap in the area in November 2006.
Illegal snares placed by poachers are a grave danger to the country’s wildlife, but especially so to the Sumatran tiger, which has a world population of less than 400. Rich in rainforests, Indonesia has 45 protected areas totaling 96,400 acres, including the Tesso Nilo National Park on Sumatra Island, where the tiger’s picture was snapped. Clearing forests for palm oil plantations and agriculture also pose threats to the country’s small population of rare tigers. “Only a dozen animals are estimated to live in this park,” Sunarto said. “If we don’t stop this, they will soon be gone.”
The Sumartran three-legged tiger
caught by cameras made international news.
“Our tiger work shows that Virginia Tech involvement in science-based research can contribute to the conservation actions in my field,” he said. “My work with the World Wildlife Fund helps ensure that management of wildlife is based upon a good knowledge resulting from rigorous scientific works,” Sunarto noted.
A Ph.D. student whose adviser is associate professor of wildlife science Marcella Kelly, Sunarto works with Sybille Klenyendorf, an earlier Ph.D. graduate of the college wildlife program and now director of species conservation for WWF.
11/25/08