Five human primates were treed on Thursday of last week by the adult relatives of a cub killed in a trap. The men were gathering incense wood in Mount Leuser National Park and set traps for food, but killed a tiger cub instead. Fragrant agar wood can bring $260 per pound. Sumatran tigers are the rarest in the world with an estimated 400 clinging to life in the wild on the Indonesian island. They are a genetically distinct subspecies of
Tigris and are the smallest. The tigers are listed on ICUN's "red list". The tigers retaliated for the cub's death and killed a twenty-eight year old man, but five others took refuge in a tree. The tigers kept them trapped for four days until rescuers contacted by cell phone arrived to save them. With the arrival of other humans, the tigers left the scene.
Human-tiger conflicts are escalating in Sumatra as habitat shrinks and tiger food becomes more scarce. Sumatran tigers are very sensitive to human disturbance and will not inhabit suitable forest when humans are around. Consequently they live in very low densities--as low as
one cat per forty square miles. The remote reaches of Gunung Leuser National Park is home to orangutans, elephants and tigers. The death of a cub was a significant event which brought together five tigers who were no doubt related. Tigers can climb trees
[photo], but apparently did not attempt to bring down the treed men. The survivors drank rainwater and were weak from hunger when they were finally saved on Monday. The man who died also climbed a tree, but a branch broke and he fell.
