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by Grace Nirang, CISARUA, Indonesia, (Reuters) Peering out from a filthy cage, a Sumatran tiger roars angrily as a veterinarian sprays liquid antibiotic on its scratched face.

The 110 kg (243 lb) seven-year-old tiger was captured in Sumatra's Riau province in September after he was believed to have killed five people.

It is one of the few remaining Sumatran tigers, whose numbers have declined sharply in the past decade and which conservationists fear may become extinct in the next decade.

"We brought him here after a long negotiation with locals. They wanted to kill it as revenge, but we can't allow another killing of a Sumatran tiger," Yohanna Trihastuti, a veterinarian from the private Safari Park in Cisarua some 120 km (75 miles) west of Jakarta, told Reuters.

In August, angry Riau residents launched a big search for the man-eater. They caught a very young tiger and killed it despite the fact that Sumatran tigers are one of the few species protected under Indonesian conservation laws.

But they apparently caught the wrong cat, as another man was found dead from a tiger attack two weeks later. The local conservation office then sought help from the Safari Park team to capture the real killer.

The last tigers

Trihastuti said the captured tiger would be kept in the park's quarantine centre for two months before being moved to its Sumatran Tiger breeding centre. "We hope in the future he can become a stud for our breeding centre," Trihastuti said.

The Safari Park has cared for 30 Sumatran tigers in its breeding centre since it was established in 1992. About 12 of the tigers were born in the centre. The statistics for Sumatran tigers are disturbing: about 400 remained in the wild in 1992 and an average of 33 are killed each year, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

With a shrinking habitat - most Sumatran forests have been converted into palm oil plantations - and rampant poaching for body parts and fur, tiger numbers are sure to be lower now, experts said.

"A shrinking habitat because of rapid human population growth, forest being cleared for plantations and illegal hunting are the reasons for the sharp decline," said Jansen Manansang, the park's managing director, who is also a coordinator for the national Sumatran Tiger Conservation Project.

"They come out of the jungle, as they have nothing to eat, and approach the village, disturbing the livestock or attacking people.

"If they are caught by villagers, they usually kill the tigers.

We don't want that to happen. Maybe we can still save them, regardless of age, and put them in a captive breeding programme to save their kind."

The Sumatran tiger - or panthera tigris sumatranensis - could be Indonesia's last species of tiger.

The Balinese tiger became extinct at the beginning of the 20th century and the Javan tiger has also been officially declared extinct, although several park rangers have reported fairly recent sightings, unconfirmed by photographic or other evidence.

The Safari Park's Sumatran tiger conservation programme keeps stud books and a genome resource bank and employs a tiger rescue team that works to save tigers from villagers and poachers.

"Poachers kill tigers for their bones, which are used for medicine, but they also target the fur," Manansang said, adding tigers were also captured alive to be sold illegally.

"I hate to say it, but owning a tiger is a status symbol for some people here."

Black market

A stuffed Sumatran tiger carries one of the biggest price tags on the black market, about $2,500. Pieces of the magnificent creature are also for sale - tiger penises are sold as aphrodisiacs, and ground-up bones, claws and teeth go into traditional Chinese remedies for arthritis and rheumatism.

"It's sad to say, but the illegal trade is rampant here," said Chairul Saleh of the WWF.

"We may not be able to hear the roar of a Sumatran tiger, or see it, in the next seven to 12 years if no preventive measures are taken."

The total value of Indonesia's illegal animal trade is unknown, but animal activists say hundreds of creatures are sold each month despite protection under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna. Wild animals often wind up at the Pramuka Market in East Jakarta. Established in 1967 as a bird market, the market has sold all manner of creatures since the 1980s.

Overlooking it is a remnant of a failed campaign to combat the illegal trade, a faded billboard threatening sellers and buyers of endangered animals with five years imprisonment.

"Poaching and illegal trade are even more rampant after the economic crisis," Saleh said. "Locals see it as a lucrative source of income."

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