It’s been five years since a local mechanic from Indonesiawhile driving his motorcycle at night, he came across what could be the First sighting of a Javan tiger since 1976. At that moment, he disappeared from sight, and it was the last confirmed sighting to date. Half a century without news of this enormous common feline of the most populated island in Indonesia.
At that moment, doubts arose. In its flight, it might have left behind some clue to its identity. And so it did. Kalih Raksasewu, a researcher involved in local conservation work who grew up hearing stories of this type of giant cat, found something that could determine what his mechanic actually saw. A lock of hairlocated on a wooden fence that the animal had jumped over in its escape.
I was hoping the tiger had caught a hair when he jumped. It turned out to be trueRaksasewu said then. Since then, the exhibition has toured different government offices, and It has been analyzed by locals and scientistsBut doubts were still there: at first, the main hypotheses pointed to the fact that they could be remains of some local plant or common felines.
The appearance of this tiger is very similar to that of Sumatra (still existing, but in critical danger of extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature). In fact, they are often confused, although it has darker hair and finer stripes than its Sumatran relativethe only one that would exist in the Asian archipelago.
DNA leaves doubts
A few weeks ago, DNA analysis of the lock found obtained a coincidence: the Java tiger. This was confirmed by researchers in an article published in Oryxa peer-reviewed journal edited by Cambridge University PressIn their study, they compared it to a hair from its closest living relative, the Sumatran hair.
In Indonesia, If we talk about the king of the jungle, we are referring to the tiger.said Wirdateti, an Indonesian government researcher and co-author of the paper. But further testing will be needed to confirm this coincidence. And if true, it would be part of what some call lzaro creatures, animals declared extinct that somehow, it is not very clear how, they manage to survive.
Anubhab Khan, Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Copenhagen and tiger genome expert, says the big cat genome is very complex, with distinctive features that affect what happens when the DNA is sequenced. In his opinion, he believes that experts thought they were comparing mitochondrial DNA, but in reality it was anotherFor him, there is no doubt that the hair comes from a big cat, but he does not venture to confirm details with more precision. It is not conclusive.
For decades, the presence of these big cats has been a serious problem for the inhabitants of West Java province. Entire villages had to be evacuated because of this. In the 19th century, Javan tigers They ended the lives of hundreds of peopleas the coffee and sugar cane plantations approached the forests where they lived.
Now, due to the poaching and human action, they would be extinctFrom being a somewhat wilder island, to being densely populated, with More than 150 million people live there. There is therefore little room left for a large tiger to roam freely without being seen by humans. If, for example, it is shown that still exists, it will surely become a protected animalIt is the obligation of all parties, including society, to participate in the preservation of its population, according to the Ministry of Environment and Forests.
Follow the AS Newspaper channel on WhatsAppwhere you will find all things sport in one place: the latest news, the agenda with the latest news on the most important sporting events, the most notable images, the opinions of the best AS journalists, reports, videos, and a bit of humour from time to time.
