Indonesian arrested selling Sumatran tiger skin

Poaching is responsible for almost 80 percent of Sumatran tiger deaths

Last updated: January 07, 2020 | 09:14

AFP and Compiled by Christian Borbon, Digital Content Producer

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Banda Aceh, Indonesia: An Indonesian caught trying to sell the skin of a critically endangered Sumatran tiger has been arrested, police said Monday, highlighting the problem of animal trafficking in the Southeast Asian country.

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Authorities in Aceh, at the northern tip of Sumatra island, arrested the man last week after he offered to sell the skin to an undercover officer, posing as a buyer, for 90 million rupiah ($6,500).

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Police, who confiscated the tiger's skull as well as some bones and teeth, said they were also hunting another man who allegedly supplied the animal's parts to the suspect.

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"We estimated that the tiger had been dead for about three months," Taing Lubis, a veterinarian at Aceh's conservation agency, told AFP, adding the male tiger was about eight years old. "And we think it died from stabbing. Its neckbones were also fractured."

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Officials from the local office of the nature conservation agency (BKSDA) display a tiger skin in Banda Aceh.

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The arrest comes after police in another part of Sumatra last month arrested several suspected poachers caught with the skin of a Sumatran tiger and four foetuses.

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Poaching is responsible for almost 80 percent of Sumatran tiger deaths, according to TRAFFIC, a global wildlife trade monitoring network.

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An official from the local office of the nature conservation agency (BKSDA) display tiger bones in Banda Aceh which were found after a man was arrested while trying to sell a tiger skin to undercover police.

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Sumatran tigers are considered critically endangered by protection group the International Union for Conservation of Nature, with fewer than 400 believed to remain in the wild.

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Officials from the local office of the nature conservation agency (BKSDA) display tiger bones in Banda Aceh which were found after a man was arrested while trying to sell a tiger skin to undercover police.

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Officials from the local office of the nature conservation agency (BKSDA) measured a tiger skin in Banda Aceh after a man was arrested while trying to sell the skin to undercover police.

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An official from the local office of the nature conservation agency (BKSDA) points at a plastic bag containing a tiger skin in Banda Aceh.

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