Animals Gone Wild: Indonesian Man Bluffs Sumatran Tiger Into Fleeing

KOMPAS.com – A farmer in the Indonesian province of North Sumatra’s Toba Samosir regency has turned the tables on a Sumatran tiger, after he confronted the big cat and drove it off in a standoff earlier this week.

“I got face to face with the tiger last Wednesday [January 13] evening, after I caught him in a sty rustling the pigs,” said the farmer, who was identified as Sinaga, a resident of a hamlet called Meranti Timur.

Sinaga recalled that he did hear a stir in his pig sties but was reluctant to take action, as it was raining heavily and it was dark. But he eventually went after his wife repeated insistence that he take a look. It did not take long for him to find something was not right.

“Once I looked at the sties, I seemed to notice another animal with brownish-yellow fur and black stripes, so I turned on the light in my cell phone to take a better look. And that was when I came face to face with the tiger.”

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But Sinaga’s nerves held. Being unarmed, he resorted to bluff against the apex predator.

“I was only three meters away from the tiger when he turned from the pig and faced me,” he told Kompas.com on Friday, January 15. “I then started yelling at him three times. This apparently worked, as the tiger fled.” He then raised the alarm to his neighbors.

Sinaga shortly learned about the tiger’s depredations the next day. “I found that [the tiger] preyed on a goat belonging to my brother-in-law. Nothing remained of it except its head and chest,” he recalled.

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Sinaga noted that tigers are known to prey on livestock in Meranti Timur. The last incident occurring two years ago, when the felines preyed on cows.

Toba Samosir and the neighboring regency of Langkat has experienced multiple tiger attacks on livestock, with six incidents reported in December 2020 and January 2021. The Sumatran tiger is a protected species under Indonesian law due to its endangered status.

Around 500 of the felines remain in the wild and in zoos throughout Indonesia and other countries around the world.

(Writer: Dewantoro, Medan Contributor Medan, Dewantoro | Editors: Candra Setia Budi, Aprillia Ika)

Sources: 

https://regional.kompas.com/read/2021/01/16/06310061/cerita-sinaga-usir-harimau-yang-hendak-makan-ternaknya-dari-jarak-3-meter?page=all#page2. 

https://regional.kompas.com/read/2021/01/15/11450071/setelah-di-langkat-harimau-juga-mangsa-ternak-di-toba-samosir?page=all#page2.