Javan tiger may still survive in West Java

The Sumatran tiger’s predicament is recognised around the globe. This critically endangered hunter is believed to be the only surviving tiger population still roaming Indonesia’s Sunda Islands.

Or so it seemed.

The Javan tiger’s possible return

For many decades, scientists had found no trace of the Sumatran tiger’s relative, the Javan tiger, which formerly ranged across Indonesia’s most heavily populated island. In 2008, following more than a century of relentless hunting and habitat destruction, the Javan tiger was pronounced extinct.

Yet its story may not have finished there. In 2019, a decade after researchers had lost hope, a suspected tiger hair emerged from obscurity.

On 18 August, local resident and conservationist Ripi Yanur Fajar said he had caught sight of a tiger near a village in West Java. He notified researcher Kalih Raksasewu, who visited the reported location with government employee Bambang Adryanto.

At the site, the pair found footprints and claw scratches that they believe may have been left by a tiger. A lone hair was caught on a fence dividing the village road from a plantation.

Genetic evidence from West Java

In March 2022, the sample was sent to Indonesia’s Biology Research Centre for National Research and Innovation (BRIN) for genetic testing.

The findings were assessed against Sumatran tiger samples and a Javan tiger museum specimen dating from 1930. Both tigers are considered to belong to the same subspecies (Panthera tigris sondaica).

The unidentified hair showed a 97 percent genetic similarity to the Sumatran tiger. Its genetic distance from the museum Javan tiger specimen was 0.3 percent.

"From this comprehensive mtDNA analysis we conclude that the hair sample from South Sukabumi belongs to the Javan tiger, and that it falls in the same group as the Javan tiger museum specimen collected in 1930," conclude the study’s authors, including Raksasewu and Adryanto.

"Whether the Javan tiger actually still occurs in the wild needs to be confirmed with further genetic and field studies."

Javan tiger habitat remains under threat

Even if this tiger population has survived, it is unlikely to be flourishing and would urgently require protection.

Centuries ago, the Javan tiger was common across forests and dense scrub. Today, however, Java is the world’s most populous major island and is home to more than half of Indonesia’s people. Meeting the needs of this population has meant that much of the tiger’s habitat has been cleared for farming.

As agriculture replaced forest and the tiger’s natural prey became scarce, these predators began taking livestock and were persecuted as pests for decades.

By the 1970s, no more than a dozen Javan tigers remained dispersed through wildlife reserves and national parks in East and West Java. Many of those animals vanished over the years that followed.

From time to time, people in Java have reported seeing tigers or finding their tracks. Although none of these reports has been verified, some residents have believed that nearby tigers were responsible for livestock deaths.

The West Java tiger hair discovery lends support to earlier alleged encounters, but it does not necessarily offer hope for the animals’ future.

Habitat loss across Java is continuing at speed. Just over 2 percent of its original lowland forest survives, and some experts fear that this biodiversity could soon disappear entirely. Java leopards, which are frequently mistaken for tigers, are viewed by some local people as the final guardians of the fading forest.

Java’s tigers may not yet have disappeared for good, but without a rapid increase in conservation action, they may not remain for much longer.

The study was published in Oryx.