Tigers Forever in Johor

Tigers Forever is an action plan to ensure that tigers remain in the wild forever, with the ambitious target of increasing tiger numbers by 50 percent over the next 10 years at key sites in Asia.

One of these sites is the Endau-Rompin landscape in the Malaysian state of Johor, comprising 1,500 sq km of forested land centred on Endau-Rompin National Park.

Biological monitoring

The target of a 50% increase in tiger numbers means that we need a precise estimate of the population at the beginning of the project, and the purpose of our monitoring work is estimate this and to make sure the project is moving towards meeting this goal.

Camera-trapping

Camera traps set in Endau-Rompin National Park for 4 months in 2007 produced photos of three individual tigers (two males and one female). We also photographed golden cat, Asian elephant, sambar deer, muntjac, common wild pig, bearded pig and tapir. A systematic camera trapping survey to estimate the number of tigers in the whole 1,500 km2 study site is planned .

Prey occupancy survey

Due to the low abundance of prey species in tropical rainforest, the project uses survey techniques recently developed  by the Tigers Forever Technical Support Team and the WCS India Program.

The Endau-Rompin landscape is divided into 464 grids of 3.25 sq km and we walk at least 5 km in each of these, searching for fresh signs (footprints, faeces, etc) of the main species preyed on by tigers. We then know what proportion of the forest is occupied by prey species and the trend in the abundance of each species in the landscape over the years.

We started this work in Johor in April 2008. So far we have covered Endau-Rompin National Park and we've started on the adjacent forest. The survey team leaders are mainly WCS staff with assistance from staff of Johor National Parks Corporation (JNPC) and over 30 indigenous people from 9 villages in and around the survey area.

Acknowledgements

WCS Malaysia acknowledges the in-kind contribution of staff, field accommodation and equipment by the Johor government through JNPC and the Department of Forestry of Johor. Main financial support was provided by Panthera Foundation and JNPC.

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