Technique for tracking serial criminals used to protect tigers from extinction

Scientists hope to use sophisticated methods to minimise conflict between humans and Sumatra's remaining big cats

There are only around 4,000 tigers left in the wild (Getty Images)

A tool normally used to catch criminals on the run from the law has been turned to another use altogether: helping tigers and humans live together in peace.

After years of habitat destruction by humans, the wild tiger population only numbers in the thousands and these big cats are on the verge of extinction.

Despite their rarity, some of the last remaining tigers in Sumatra live in close proximity to human villages.

This means people and livestock are vulnerable to tiger attack, and the tigers of their part are threatened by poaching and retaliation killings.

Millions in conservation funds are spent every year trying to protect actors on both sides of this conflict, and the scientists behind a new study published in Nature Communications wanted to find a way of making these efforts more effective.

“Understanding people’s tolerance is key to managing dangerous species and is particularly urgent for tigers,” said Dr Matthew Struebig, a conservation expert at the University of Kent.

Dr Struebig and his team used data from 13 years of human-tiger encounters to generate a geographic profile – an advanced technique used to predict the whereabouts of serial criminals based on the location of their crimes.

Using this method they were able to pinpoint three specific locations where the risk of encountering a tiger was particularly high.

In a separate part of their study, the scientists surveyed over 2,000 local Sumatrans about their attitudes to wildlife and tolerance for tigers.

“When combined with our maps of encounter risk, information on people’s tolerance to wildlife helps us direct conservation resources to where they are needed most,” explained Dr Struebig.

“This could amount to significant cost savings in terms of animals lost or funding spent, so could be very useful in conservation.”

Using this information, the research team hopes to inform conservation groups so that they can target their actions more precisely and take pre-emptive steps to prevent harmful human-tiger interactions before they happen.

They estimated that over the 13 years of data they examined around half the attacks on livestock and people could have been avoided and 15 tigers could have been saved.