Critical wildlife havens in Sumatran forests at risk
Following calls from local conservationists, ZSL sent its Indonesian survey team to the fringes of Bukit Tigapuluh National Park in central Sumatra in 2007. This area of degraded forest had recently been gazetted by the local government as suitable for plantation forest, which meant it would be clear-felled and replaced with non-native, fast growing species such as Acacia. However, even a relatively short survey revealed the area to be far from degraded when it came to biodiversity, with tigers, elephants, sun bears, tapirs, golden cats, orang utans and clouded leopards all recorded in a short space of time. Just a small selection of the camera trap photos taken can be seen below.
This work was funded by 21st Century Tiger. This is a unique wild tiger conservation partnership between the Zoological Society of London and Global Tiger Patrol. 100% of funds raised go directly to wild tiger projects.
The Sumatran tiger is critically endangered. It is vital for its conservation that habitat connections between reserves through the remaining forested areas are preserved.
Elephant families are using this piece of forest as a migration corridor. If it is cleared, the elephants will wander into villages and cause problems. Therefore, it is in the best interests of humans as well as wildlife that proper surveys are done before the government decides where to put plantations.
ZSL's field team covers forest areas methodically on foot, stopping to set up automatic cameras at selected locations. The cameras are triggered automatically when they sense the body heat of a largish animal nearby.
Elephants and other animals sometimes hear the noise the camera makes, or detect a flash, and investigate. Elephants have been known to pull cameras off trees, but this one survived!
The Asian tapir is another endangered species that seems to thrive in secondary or logged forest according to our survey results. Though they were previously thought to be primary forest-dependent, our records show this is not necessarily the case.
The team also got a rare picture of a banded linsang - complete with a young one! These beautiful small carnivores are not often photographed, and little is known of their status.
Golden cats are another shy, rare species, yet they are surviving in these logged forests.
This tiger has noticed the camera, but unlike elephants tigers aren't really equipped to pull cameras off trees. Luckily for us!
We found evidence of several different individual tigers in this area. Not enough data to work out how many really live there though - you need to do a concentrated session of camera-trapping over several months to do that.
Clouded leopards are thought to spend a lot of their time in trees, as their front legs are well adapted for climbing. However our camera teams have recorded them on the ground in several locations now.
