Three-Legged Tiger Spotted in Sumatra

"A camera trap inside an Indonesian national park has photographed a three-legged Sumatran tiger that lost the lower half of its right front leg to escape a snare.

Sumatran tigers are the most critically endangered tiger subspecies in the world, with fewer than 400 individuals left in the wild.

A total of four photographs, taken in March and May of this year inside Tesso Nilo National Park in central Sumatra, show a male tiger that appears to be in good physical condition other than the missing paw, said Sunarto, a tiger biologist in Riau with the World Wildlife Fund, which funded the camera trap and related research.

The tiger is probably the same individual reported caught in a snare in November 2006 and that somehow scratched or cut off its own paw to escape, leaving part of its leg in the snare, Sunarto said.

It's particularly upsetting that this happened inside a national park, where tigers are supposed to enjoy protection," he said in a prepared statement. "This tiger looks like he's in good condition, but his future is uncertain. The Sumatran tiger is at such low levels, we can't afford to lose even one individual to a snare."

Now, it is the pinnacle of dimmitude to believe that an animal is safe simply because it resides within the confines of a park. And this is one of the major problems with loons and reality. A sign has little chance of saving a tiger from poachers because they do the very same thing we all would if faced with a needy family. A lucky man can earn about $450 a year playing by the rules, and 3 or 4 times as much in a single day with a lucky tiger score. Made possible by the asian yearning for tiger penis and bile and urine and you name it. Long before the tigers and lions and bears became endangered, it would have been nice if the more enlightened asian brothers and sisters stopped decorating their homes using elephant feet as umbrella stands. Now they think that all will be well if they put up a fence with a stern warning sign but the world simply doesn't work like that. If my kids were going hungry there wouldn't be a living tiger in all of Sumatra if thats what it took to feed them. Case closed.