EYE OF TIGER
Eye of the Tiger is a camera-trap monitoring program that takes place long-term in the tropical rainforest of the Leuser Ecosystem in Sumatra, Indonesia, to protect these unique beasts from poaching.
ABOUT EYE OF TIGER
Monitoring of Sumatran tigers with the help of camera traps started in 2014. Since 2016, official monitoring called EYE OF THE TIGER has been launched. Part of this activity is documenting the fauna of the Leuser ecosystem and detecting poaching.
The main goal of the Eye of the Tiger program is to protect wild animals from poaching, to reveal and unmask poachers and, of course, to bring to the public unique videos and photographs of the life of animals in their natural environment. The flagship animal of Eye of the Tiger is of course the Sumatran tiger, but our monitoring also contributes to the protection of wild elephants, orangutans, Malayan bears and more.
Part of the Eye of the Tiger program is also the monitoring of tiger conflicts in the Bohorok district. This activity takes place in cooperation with BKSDA, KPH, NPGL and WCS.
TIGER CONFLICTS
We dealt with the first monitoring of the tiger conflict at the end of 2014. Each year there were about one or two attacks on cows by tigers in the Bohorok district, which we compensated the owners. The number of attacks began to increase from the beginning of 2020, but a total change occurred from November of that year. Within two months, 10 free-grazing cows were killed in the national park’s conservation zone following proven tiger attacks. After intensive monitoring with the help of camera traps, one male tiger was found to have regularly hunted livestock in this way in the protection zone of the Gunung Leuser National Park in the Bohorok district.
Based on these events, we also reacted and transformed our anti-poaching patrol Green Patrol into an anti-conflict team that specialized in monitoring the places of tiger attacks and the tigers themselves. The goal of this activity was to find solutions to prevent or minimize attacks while protecting tigers from human retaliation. Communication with local farmers and their support in building night sheds for cows is an important activity, as the tiger hunts mainly at night.
The reason for the increased tiger attacks may also be the loss of their natural food as a result of poaching of sambar deer and wild pigs and, of course, inappropriate grazing of cows in the Leuser ecosystem. In 2024, we intend to return Green Patrol to direct field monitoring of tigers in Gunung Leuser NP, re-equip and professionalize them for assistance in solving tiger conflicts in cooperation with BKSDA, KPH, and NPGL.
