AUSTRALIA ZOO'S VET TO THE RESCUE OF SUMATRAN TIGER

News Source: Sunshine Coast Daily, page 7, Thursday 15th July, 2004
By: Neil Hickey

Australia Zoo has been enlisted to help fight the problem of tiger poaching in Indonesia.

Dr Jon Hanger, the Beerwah zoo’s wildlife veterinarian, left for the southern island of Sumatra yesterday to pass on Australia Zoo’s knowledge of treating sick and injured animals.

The workshops, organised by the Kerinci Seblat National Park in southern Sumatra and aid agency Fauna and Flora International, come as the number of Sumatran tigers hits crisis point.

The zoo’s senior tiger handler, Giles Clark, said high demand for tiger body parts and bones as medicines and aphrodisiacs had left fewer than 350 Sumatran tigers in the wild.

“At this rate, the Sumatran tiger could be extinct in the world within the next few years.”

Australia Zoo and Dreamworld joined forces to donate field kits to vets, wildlife rangers and anti-poaching patrol staff in Sumatra last year but Mr Clark said there was also a need to pass on verbal expertise.

Many tigers were being found with serious injuries after escaping from traps set by Indonesian animal poachers.