From the Princeton Weekly Bulletin, October 20, 1997
Six weeks on Sumatra
Students help initiate habitat research with goal of saving tigers from extinction
By Caroline Moseley
This
past summer, Shallin Busch '98, Andy Goodman '99, Sarah Henry '99 and
Sadie Ryan '98, along with Hans Hull '97, spent six weeks at a
research station in the Bukit Barisan Seletan National Park on the
Indonesian island of Sumatra. Their mission: to help halt extinction
of the endangered Sumatran tiger, and by extension, tigers worldwide.
Accompanied by Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary
Biology Andrew Dobson, the team had two goals: to help initiate
research at the brand new field station and to map a study grid of
the area to begin to establish what habitat is necessary to support
tigers.
There are eight subspecies of tiger, says Busch, of which three -- the Balinese, Caspian and Javan tiger -- are extinct. Scientists estimate that the world population of Bengal, Siberian, South China, Indo-Chinese and Sumatran tigers is about 5,000.
Pelts and body parts
"Our hope is to halt extinction by habitat research," says Henry. She points out that "loss of habitat -- for example, by cutting down forests -- means there is also reduction in numbers of animals on which tigers can prey."
Still, "Poaching is one of the biggest threat to tigers," says Busch. "They're hunted not only for their pelts but for their body parts, which are used in traditional medicines in many areas of the world."
"The best we can realistically do to protect tigers," says Dobson, "is increase people's awareness of the problem, try to maintain the habitat and, by setting up research stations, makes the area less attractive to poachers."
The Princeton Save the Tiger Campaign (PSTC), which supported the summer expedition, originated with "members of the classes of 1976 and 1981," says Dobson, "who contacted me to ask, `What is Princeton doing to save the tiger?' They wanted to initiate a fundraising effort associated with their respective major reunions in 1996 that would help save the endangered species that is, after all, the symbol of Princeton University."
Fascinated by the tropics
Dobson, an ecologist and epidemiologist who admits to being "fascinated by the tropics," studies the geographical distribution of endangered species, among other topics. He knew that Wildlife Conservation International (formerly the New York Zoological Society) was about to establish a research station on Sumatra, because two of his former postdoctoral students at Princeton, Margaret Kinnaird and Tim O'Brien, were scheduled to direct the effort. Working with student members of the Princeton chapter of the Conservation Biology Society (known on campus as Princeton Conservation Society), Dobson suggested a cooperative venture between Wildlife Conservation and Princetonians who wished to support the project. PSTC was born.
The theme of the campaign, says Dobson, is "The Tiger and Its Habitat Are One." He notes that Rhoda Andors '76 created a poster illustrating the theme, to be sold at reunions and elsewhere to raise money for tiger conservation.
To augment many alumni contributions and a contribution from the President's Fund, PSTC student participants have also raised funds: on October 11, the second Run for the Tiger raised about $1,600 to benefit the research station.
4x4 SuperKijang
Getting to the research station, say the students, wasn't easy. First, to get visas to enter Indonesia, the group went to Singapore. They next flew to Jakarta, where they spent a week getting research permits, permits to enter the park -- "permits for every-thing," says Henry. "It was an extremely complicated process and took a lot longer than we had expected."
Next, a rented 4x4 Indonesian SuperKijang ("a kijang is a kind of deer," says Henry) took the Princetonians and several other passengers who had apparently rented space in the vehicle on a ferry to Sumatra. Then, two hours in a bus, several more hours in a truck going over the Barisan Mountains ("with us piled up on top, hanging on by our fingertips," recalls Busch), an hour and a half walk into the jungle carrying all their gear -- and finally they had arrived.
At the station, they lived in the just-completed main building, which was built on stilts, had a corrugated tin roof and contained bunk beds. They ate "mainly rice and noodles," says Busch, "with some vegetables, some eggs or soy products, and, very occasionally, fish or chicken." This diet, enhanced with "lots of chiles" and combined with "hiking all day long," kept the group leaner than at Princeton but no less healthy.
Summer on Sumatra was "just like New Jersey," says Henry, "or at least, no worse." Because of unusually dry conditions (which have subsequently caused extensive forest fires), there were neither leeches nor mosquitoes to annoy the team, who simply dressed in long pants and long-sleeved shirts in the field to protect themselves from scratches and insect bites.
A typical day, says Busch, began at 6:00 a.m., when "we'd pair off to do vegetation surveys and note, at points 200 meters apart on a grid, the canopy openness, the understory density, and the diameter and height of the trees." They would return for lunch and set out again to spend the afternoon on the vegetation survey or mapping streams while looking for tiger tracks.
The team found one set of tiger tracks about 200 meters from camp. "It was just like a cat's paw," says Busch, "except it was the size of a human hand."
University of Indonesia
Dobson hopes that the station will be a place where Princeton juniors and seniors can do research related to their independent work. He also sees it as a place where Indonesian students will be trained in ecology -- indeed, four students from the University of Indonesia worked last summer with the Princeton group.
The students who worked at the camp received, in addition to an introduction to field research, "a glimpse, at least, of the complexity of conservation in the real world," observes Goodman. The park, he says, "was more beautiful and full of amazing animals than I had imagined, but it was certainly not an isolated or walled-off area where nature was left alone. There were roads and villages that had been there since before the `park' was created. This doesn't diminish the importance of the natural resource, but surely complicates management decisions."
To learn more about PSTC or to buy a poster, contact Busch at 258-7518 or Dobson at 258-2913.
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