Villagers eat rare Sumatran tiger, Indonesian official says
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Jakarta - Villagers in Indonesia's North Sumatra province killed and ate an endangered Sumatran tiger after it became caught in an animal trap, a conservation official said Wednesday.
The tiger was injured on Monday in a pig trap set up by residents in North Tapanuli district to protect their crops, said John Kennedy, the Indonesian head of the provincial Nature Conservancy Agency, a government body.
Residents later killed the animal and refused a request by local police to hand over its body as evidence, he said.
Killing an endangered animal is punishable by up to five years in jail.
"According to a local tradition, eating tiger meat will give them courage to go to their fields again," Kennedy said.
There are as few as 400 Sumatran tigers today in the wild on Sumatra, according to the WWF conservation group.
Forest destruction and poaching could drive the subspecies to extinction like its Javan and Balinese relatives, WWF said.
- DPA
