The Sumatran Tiger - The Last of Their Kind | Free Documentary Nature

in the remote forests of sumatra indonesia lives one of the world's rarest tiger species almost 50 percent of sumatra's forests have disappeared in the last 25 years demand for land has increased for agriculture logging and oil palm plantations and where tigers and humans meet the conflict ends in tragedy in 2009 eight indonesians were killed in a spate of brutal have attacks to protect the endangered cat at any cost british tiger expert tom maddox and indonesian bet johanna trihastuti are fighting to keep the species alive with less than 400 sumatran tigers in the wild time is running out can sumatra's tigers be kept from extinction and can the killing be stopped this is sumatra indonesia the sixth largest island on the planet a biodiversity hotspot these tropical rainforests are home to thousands of plants and animal species and one iconic cat the sumatran tiger with less than 400 left in the wild it's critically endangered and could be the first large predator to become extinct this century it was separated from other asian tigers around a hundred thousand years ago rising sea levels isolated sumatra making this tiger genetically unique it's the smallest tiger in the world evolved for living and hunting in this rainforest it has the largest k-19 of any land-based carnival and a jaw that can exert 450 kilograms of force per square inch it's believed to be one of the most aggressive of all tigers and built for the kill it's late afternoon on january the 23rd 2009 three rubber tappers are finishing a day's work in the forests of jambi east sumatra they head back to a basic hut unaware that they are in tiger territory a sumatran tiger a formidable ambush predator lurks silently nearby early the next morning arbaine mutalip wakes before his companions in a matter of seconds he is attacked from behind the full force of the tiger's jaw crushing his neck the tiger retreats into the forest but it's too late for mutalib he did not stand a chance against this top predator the men entered the forest on the border of the national park to harvest wild rubber humans aren't normal prey for tigers and this attack could just have been an instinctive reaction to another large mammal threatening its territory but five days later a second gruesome attack just fifteen kilometers from the last would trigger the hunt for a manheim he was called to the scene of a tiger attack but when he got there the predator hadn't left the only survivor told heifer the terrifying story of the previous night three illegal loggers are asleep inside at 11 pm the men awoken by noises something begins to scratch at the walls they are terrified foreign but the boy is frozen with fear his uncle makes an agonizing decision as he runs the boy's screens pierce through the forest the tiger claims two more victims the following day the search party is shocked the men appeared to have been partially eaten could these tigers now be seeing humans as food the hunt is on for jambi's first man-eater the forest rangers along with conservationists mobilized to catch the tiger before it kills again the rangers turn to locals for help a farmer has found fresh tiger prince in an oil palm plantation only four kilometers from his village there is little food here these plantations only support up to 15 percent of the tigers natural prey it could mean the tiger was forced to attack humans out of starvation and it could kill again the patrol needs to catch it fast they bait a heavy steel cage with a live goat protected behind bars it produces a strong aroma and the tigers have an excellent sense of smell can this cage hold a 100 kilogram predator tigers hunt at night so the rangers will leave the trap until morning after sundown a hunter is on the prowl it creeps silently towards the cage and circles it probing for a way in on the morning of february 11 2009 forest rangers returned to a tiger trap in jambi sumatra and this dramatic scene is captured by the team's home video camera an 82 kilogram female tiger has been caught the team keep their distance they aren't certain the cage can withstand her strength water is thrown to cool her down she's terrified and wounded from hitting the cage the quick decision is made to take her to the nearest zoo for treatment right now it's impossible to tell if this female is responsible for the attacks she needs protecting from angry locals and the rangers feel the safest place for her is behind bars in champion zoo guilty or innocent her reputation as a killer is a death warrant this is the center of the tiger conflict murbak is one of the most remote areas in sumatra and one of the last refuges for tigers but half of it has been allocated to the logging industry and it's rapidly disappearing once the trees have gone the palm oil industry takes over oil palm plantations cover almost three million hectares of borneo and sumatra a booming 1.4 billion dollar business when land is taken up by oil palm plantations the ecosystem is affected leaving open spaces and less diversity of prey for the tigers as the natural forest diminishes conflict between humans and tigers escalates and history has shown that a tiger always loses the indonesian archipelago has already seen two tiger subspecies become extinct the jargon and the balinese tigers are solitary animals each one needs as much as 80 square kilometers of forest to hunt in here in burback that space is running out forcing the tiger into contact with illegal loggers rubber tappers and poachers one man is on a mission to keep them apart and protect the tiger's last territory tom maddox is manager of the zoological society of london's indonesian projects he is racing to find a solution people need to understand that you know this is not tigers being evil or bad tankers are large predators if they meet people this is a risk that's going to happen the first focus has got to be on people encroaching into the forest reducing the habitat that's left burback is the front line if this forest is cleared by illegal loggers it could be converted to oil palm and the tigers last sanctuary will be gone forever a national park ranger has received a tip that illegal loggers are operating in the area tom and his team join him on patrol three kilometers into the forest they find a large camp but there's nobody in sight it looks like it's been just abandoned there's clothes out to dry and there's cooking things there's a cup of tea half finished there um so either hiding around in the forest somewhere or they've headed back some other way it soon becomes obvious that this is a carefully planned logging operation we've got various cut wood around what seems to be happening is that they're transporting the wood out of here down this drainage ditch and it's coming out of the forest along these tracks here chainsaws start up in the distance the loggers don't know there's a patrol nearby tom risks going further into the forest into tiger territory but as he gets closer the chainsaws stop this is where they're working but they've run off you can still smell it it still smells of freshly cut wood so they were just working here a few minutes ago possibly see how they knew we're coming it's charging up a mobile phone battery just there the ranger will confiscate the chainsaws and bring them back to the national park headquarters similar to the drugs trade the illegal logging industry is highly organized and often with powerful political connections desperate to make a living villagers get pulled into chainsaw loan deals with logging companies that they have to pay off by cutting down trees for tom this is a bittersweet victory well it's quite sad i'm sensing all this but it's it's just so complicated because it's not the guys that run off they're not necessarily the bad guys behind this it's uh they're gonna be paid by somebody else tom may have temporarily saved these trees but this forest is sporadically policed and the loggers will be back if tom can prove burback holds a viable population of tigers he can build a case to protect it from further destruction and in turn help prevent more attacks on humans his team are setting up camera traps one method of finding out how many tigers are in this forest they look for jungle paths clear walkways the tigers routinely use this is one of our camera traps so the camera trap has got a simple point-and-shoot camera up in the top and then it's got a sensor down here and the sensor will trigger the camera when a tiger walks past the only way to count wild tigers is by photographing and identifying each one every tiger has an individual stripe battle like a barcode on each animal we need to get left and right sides of the tiger um because then we can be sure we can identify it so we have to have another one over here so this is covered up at the moment so that it doesn't fire so we've got cameras on either side and the theory is that tiger walks down the middle here and we get photographs left and right sides at the same time the team move further into the forest along a potential tiger highway these tigers are so rare that in seven years tom has only ever seen wild tigers through photographs today they think they found a new location and two large tiger prints confirmed the need for a camera to be placed here you've got the front foot here and there's a back foot on top of it as it's walked on top and so this part here is this part of the track goes like that um the front foot is a bit bigger because that's where all the muscle of the tiger is so the front feet are usually a bit bigger um and just from the size of this one i'm pretty sure this is a male it's quite a large one the print is a great sign it means the tigers are using this route but further down the trail the team uncover a crudely designed animal trap this would have been dug out this would have been a deeper hole we've been covered with this i've probably covered the leaves and so on so you couldn't see it the snare would have come through here that will be around the edge of the hole like that and the spring that gives the tension that's that diagonal branch up there the slanting one so it would have pulled that right back until it was really really uh very very tense and then when the tiger comes along and it steps on this would have released the trigger that branch would have sprung up and it would have pinned the paw to the side here with the snare around it like that you just wouldn't be able to get it away in sumatra illegal poaching accounts for 78 of tiger deaths just meters from the trap a pile of animal fur confirms tom's worst fears pretty sure that this is tiger um and partly because of the way it looks but also partly because of the damage we've got around some of the branches around this area a lot of the branches are being stripped which is something you get when a tiger's been caught in a snail and it's going crazy trying to rake all the trees around it over 241 kilometers away near karinshi national park in west sumatra another tiger is captured by forest rangers a large male accused of killing livestock has been caught with a baity trap the team named the tiger sutter authorities think humans could be its next target and need to relocate him once a tiger has been captured there are two options either they are moved to a remote location away from humans or they are sent to local zoos or reading centers and spend the rest of their lives behind bars salma the young female accused of killing three people is being kept in jambi zoom on display to a curious public the brutality of the attacks has stunned the local community and they're happy to see her cage tom doesn't want sutter the big male to be put behind bars in a zoo like selma he wants to try the second option translocation moving a tiger out of the conflict area and into a more remote national park no one really knows if translocation works it is sometimes done quickly in response to tiger conflict tom is about to put these systems to the test he wants to put a gps satellite collar on sata if this works the data they get could provide a solution to the tiger conflict we don't know anything about these tigers when they get moved like this we don't know if it's a successful thing to do we don't know um we don't know if the tiger is going to try and head back to where it came from or if it's going to go and disturb anybody else so we really need this this information to keep temps on it really the zoological society of london conducts routine tests on salsa to gauge his health and they fit him with a gps tracking collar this way they can learn about tiger movements if they're too close to human populations tom can try to intervene the team drives sassa to a remote location on the border of karinshi national park to release him far away from hunters and villagers this incredible moment of freedom is captured on two hidden cameras deep in burbank's forest tom waits patiently the caller should transmit every eight hours sending tom updates via email but 24 hours after susse's release he hasn't had a single update the caller takes a pps position every hour and then it sends us that information every eight hours so by now we should have had two or three emails really so rather worrying we haven't had anything a few hours later and there's still nothing okay it's all been working fine i was getting email positions where it was in the car on the ride down but um just a couple of hours before it reached where they want to release him um i've not had any more information through since then which is a little bit worrying tom is concerned the collar may have broken as the tiger was released or even worse that the tiger dives straight into a hunter's trap the next morning brings some better news salsa's collar has started transmitting this means the test has worked tom can now track such as every move it's been a bit of a delay but we've got emails through now um so we can see where the tiger's been going for the last few hours and it seems now in the last hour or so he's now actually back inside the national park um so everything's looking good good news the next week will be critical and tom will monitor his movements closely hoping he doesn't leave the national park but selma the female tiger accused of killing three humans has been locked up in a small cage in jambi zoo there has been another killing in the same area as summer's capture speculation begins about summer's guilt is she the actual killer or is the man-eater still out there has come to give selma the tiger accused of killing three people a medical checkup the test results will determine her health and help decide what to do with her next dr johanna prepares a sedative metatomedine and ketamine a combination of drugs often used for wild big cats she doesn't know selma's exact weight so she needs to make an estimate to calculate the dosage they use a blowpipe to inject her with the sedative she's aggressive and the first shot doesn't hit the intended target securely enough they try again it works they don't want to keep her under anesthetic for long salma's weight and size are indicators of her health with very little space to roam summer has put on 23 kilograms blood samples are taken to analyze her organ functions and her dna will be tested and kept on record dr johanna measures her teeth to determine her age and if she's fit enough to go back to the wild she's roughly seven years old and her teeth are in good condition which means she'll be able to catch prey if released to bring her temperature down quickly they wipe rubbing alcohol over someone's body ten minutes later the temperature drops to a more stable 39 degrees celsius it's a relief but it's clear that after months in a small cage her health is worsened kept here any longer she could die but the accusations against her are too great to release her back into the wild she could end up in a detention center for many this is taman safari park indonesia home to a center for captured wild sumatran tigers asean has spent the last 10 years as keeper to a row of caged tigers most tigers in this facility have killed humans and livestock at 17 years old jabul is the center's oldest tiger in captivity tigers can live for 20 years in the wild they rarely live beyond 15. is the most aggressive tiger in the center he has never lost the instinct to kill yeah it's not easy keeping 40 carnivals every month these tigers eat over 200 kilograms of beef and kangaroo meat low in cholesterol and high in protein diet and exercise prevent them from becoming overweight in the wild sumatran tigers feed mainly on wild boar and deer eating up to 35 kilograms of meat in one go and making a meal last for days when full it will cover the carcass and return only when it is hungry again the tigers in this facility will never hunt in the wild again although spared potential death from poachers these tigers will have to live out their lives in captivity foreign foreign years ago this center had an influx of conflict tigers and no forest to release them in tamin safari staff teamed up with other indonesian zoos to start breeding these critically endangered tigers to help keep the species alive today it's one of the largest breeding facilities for sumatran tigers in the world tony samanpow the director of the center is the man behind the breeding program keeping wild tigers behind bars and breeding them is controversial but this tiger facility could hold the future of the species in its gene bank not everybody agree with what we have done here the reason is because they think that the tigers should be in the wild all the time if we have a nice habitat for them to release but would be fine but nowadays it's difficult to have a big habitat for releasing the tigers especially the problem tiger made either tiger so we put them in the breeding environment so we can breed them so we can have a very strong chillpool of the sumatran titus indonesia has already lost two tiger subspecies the balinese and the javanese tigers both species could have been kept alive in zoos with the help of a breeding program it's an irony but with less than 400 in the wild life behind bars for these sumatran tigers could help the survival of the entire species dr johanna who treated salma the young female is responsible for all the tigers at the center at the moment tarman safari has 33 sumatran tigers to its name and that number is about to increase one of the tigers they see is two months pregnant a tiger's gestation period is around a hundred days so desi has another month before she gives birth a new birth is a tense time here and the staff will be on call 24 7. has a personal interest in making sure desi has a smooth pregnancy aggressive but breeding endangered tigers isn't easy in the middle of her rounds johanna gets a worrying call about some of the newly born cubs myself the center's newest members were born in december last year rejected by their mother the two-month-old brothers survival is in the hands of taman's dedicated team of foster parent vets every new birth strengthens the sumatran tiger gene pool two-month-old brothers yudha and depend fully on their surrogate mothers needing to be fed every four hours just like a human baby but yuda is having trouble swallowing if he can't get nourishment he won't survive foreign if his neck doesn't straighten out he won't be able to eat solid food stopping him from developing johanna shows the vet's assistant how to prepare extra calcium for the cup um they will all be keeping a close eye on foreign when they're four months old wira and yudha will be returned to the breeding center hoping that in the future they will mate and produce a new generation of sumatran tigers to help keep the species alive collecting detailed records of which tigers mate and the offspring they produce helps to keep the gene pool pure she manages the sumatran tigers database and keeps all dna samples in the center's gene bank each sample is vitally important with this gene bank we can analyze whether certain tiger is released modern tiger or not this stops inbreeding which could harm the future of the species with so few tigers left one day more desperate measures may have to be considered everything that maybe in the future the number will getting lower we need to think about certain technology maybe we use like a reproductive reproduction technology like collecting sperm and then use that sperm to inseminate to the animal today legaya and johanna are collecting blood from a tiger for dna analysis they hope to mate him but they need to make sure he has no genetic abnormalities it sounds like a simple process but how do you take blood from a large adult tiger so this is a tiger that we are going to take the blood now we have this twist a squeeze cage so we can use this without anesthetize the animal we will try to do it as good as possible so it won't hurt the animal but squeezing the sumatran tiger is easier said than done they will need all the muscle available the tiger won't want to be in the cage they all need to be careful we are going to take the blood from the vein from the tail so first we need to uh turn it with the tail part after that we need to clean a little bit the part of the tail using butterfly needle we poke the part of the tail and then with 10 cc syringe we will get the blood out from the pain the blood will be analyzed and the dna will be recorded in the regional stud book to find a good match for this tiger to mate with if salmer the female in jambi zoo is brought to the breeding facility this male could be her potential mate but her fate is still unknown in burbank forest there are four new tiger attacks taking the total to eight a bloody record for sumatra's conflict could there be more than one man-eater tom maddox from the zoological society of london believes that salma is innocent two tigers killing in one area is unheard of salma was just in the wrong place at the wrong time a decision has been made to relocate her she will be moved for her own safety to a holding pen in sumatra's lam pong province in the hope she might be released back into the wild dr johanna has been called to monitor her health for the relocation it will take two hours to fly her to her new home it's a tense time for johanna she can't risk complications from an anaesthetic so selma must be awake for the flight when the plane lands salmo is quickly taken to the holy pen where three other tigers are waiting to be released johanna has received some bad news from the lab cramped conditions at jumbi zoo have taken their toll on salma the capture tiger community s foreign salmer is one step closer to freedom but for now johanna hopes that the better facilities will make for a quick recovery at this facility tigers are given live prey to eat most zoos don't engage in this practice but here they want to keep these tigers as wild as possible their hunting instincts need to be strong to survive in the forest tom maddox has come to to man's safari reading center to see the newborn cubs he's had some devastating news four days after sassa the tiger was released into the national park his gps collar stopped transmitting basically what happened he was released at a point right on the edge of karini national park snares that have been set specifically for some of the mountain goat species that live there he'd walked into one of these broken off its anchorage and dragged the snare along until the anchor had got waged in a tree and basically had been throttled to death uh there and then when they reached sutter he was already dead skinned beheaded and ready to be sold to middlemen trading in illegal tiger parts this was a kind of summary really of what could be happening to taiwan because this is one of the only tigers we knew what was happening day by day he survived four days in a national park before he was killed by snares so it's just a glimpse of what could be happening to all sorts of other tigers in the area salmer the young female is still waiting to be released but nobody knows if she will survive captivity or if released will she suffer the same fate as sutter the tiger that attacked and jambi has yet to be caught and on the 21st of march 2010 another killing in the same area taking the total to nine a record for jumbi the conflict continues these incidents have proved something to tom about the future of this species and it's a stark realization of what must be done to save them there's really two things that smarter and tigers need the first thing is habitat they need enough places and big enough places and secondly they need poaching control that's poaching of tigers but also approaching their prey and the whole wildlife trade network that drives all that sumatran tigers have survived in indonesia for thousands of years adapting to changing conditions they've managed to keep themselves alive but humans destroying their habitat may be one thing they cannot survive tom has been invited to the nursery by johanna to meet the newest additions two-month-old cubs weira and yuna it's a special day for tom a rare opportunity to get so close to these tigers you does beginning to swallow solid food he'll make a full recovery in january this year wwf camera traps captured the world's first footage in the wild of a sumatran tigress in her two one-year-old cubs this footage gives hope that there is still natural forest that can support tigers but incredible sights like this are very rare and until sumatra's remaining forests can be protected indonesia's last tigers will remain on the brink you

Channel: Free Documentary - Nature

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Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full documentary, HD documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), nature documentary, Free Documentary Nature, Tiger, Tiger Documentary, Big Cats, Panthera tigris, Sumatran Tiger, Sumatra, Indonesia, Wildlife, Wildlife Documentary, endangered species, Wildlife Documentary 2020, Animal Documentary, East Asia, Wildlife Predators, endangered mammals, big cats wildlife, Tigers

Id: U1LhgusHlA8

Length: 50min 0sec (3000 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 06 2020