TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Riau plantation worker dies in third tiger attack of 2025
The Riau conservation agency was able to trap the Sumatran tiger thought to be responsible for mauling and killing Yafao Zebua, 50, and has removed the critically endangered animal from the area for later release back into the wild.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Officials from the Riau Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BBKSDA) prepare to evacuate a Sumatran tiger from a plantation area in Pelalawan regency on March 16, 2025, after it was trapped near the location where the body of plantation worker Yafao Zebua was discovered three days earlier, bearing injuries consistent with a tiger attack. (Kompas.com/Riau BBKSDA)
A
plantation worker in Riau was killed last week in a suspected attack by a Sumatran tiger, the third such incident this year amid growing concern over an increase in animal-human conflicts on Sumatra due to deforestation.
Yafao Zebua, a 50-year-old worker at a plantation company, is thought to have been attacked at around 7 p.m. on March 13, after he had finished tending to acacia trees at an industrial forest in Pelalawan regency.
“The victim had just sprayed the plants at the forest plantation,” Genman Suhefti Hasibuan, head of the Riau Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BBKSDA) said recently, as quoted by Kompas.com.
“His [colleagues] were waiting for him in a boat to return to their camp when a tiger suddenly attacked him.”
Yafao had suffered claw injuries to the back of his head, neck and right thigh.
The plantation company reported the fatal tiger attack to the Riau BBKSDA, which sent out an animal rescue team to handle the incident in coordination with the company, assessing the scene of the attack and placing cameras and traps in the area.
“The team installed two box traps near the scene and the workers’ camp, which are situated in the tiger’s path, based on the paw prints found [...],” Genman said.
