Relentless habitat destruction and rampant poaching for their skins, bones, penises, and other organs for trophies and Asian folk medicines has decimated the population of Sumatran tigers. There are less than 500 are still left in the wild. Two other indigenous species of Indonesian tigers have completed disappeared in just the last 80 years.

The Indonesian government has finally awakened to the problem that human weakness and corruption within their country has forced Indonesia to export dozens of Sumatran tigers to safe zoos all over the world.