JAKARTA - The Ministry of Environment and Forestry (LHK) held a book review event for Bonita: Hikayat Sang Raja. This book was written by an online media journalist named Chaidir Anwar Tanjung.
In his remarks read by Deputy Minister of the Environment and Forestry Alue Dohong, Minister of the Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya said that Chaidir himself would explain the contents of this book. However, fate said otherwise. Chaidir passed away exactly a week ago on November 20.
"We just met, sat together to discuss the plan for this book review. Supposedly, now we are listening to his stories. However, it seems that the more loving God called him ahead of us," said Siti in a book review, Friday, November 27.
Siti explained that this book was written based on Chaidir's experience covering the safeguarding of wildlife, namely the Bonita Tiger, which several years ago pounced on two people to death.
"The journey to rescue Bonita, which began at the end of 2017 until successfully released in 2020, was successfully documented by the late Chaidir as being conveyed in popular language and as if he was telling a story. That is why this is like a tale of the king's saga," explained Siti.
UGM Forestry Faculty researcher Ali Imran read that there was a conflict between the Bonita tiger and a human, which killed two people, when reading Bonita's book: Hikayat Sang Raja.
Ali saw that Bonita was an individual who was looking for territory. "Because he is a tiger with a relatively young age, he tries to find territory," said Ali.
Then, Bonita is actually quite familiar with the human presence around her. This is because Bonita can still survive in the forest area close to roads and passing vehicles.
"This shows that Bonita can personally adapt to humans," he said.
Furthermore, Ali saw that there was indeed a conflict between Bonita and the two residents. At that time, a victim named Kusmiati tried to save herself by beating Bonita. From there, Bonita felt threatened.
Then, the second victim, a bird wallet maker named Yusri Effendi, was also considered a threat by Bonita. Yusri threw stones, so Bonita pounced on him.
"If I see, tigers are quite adaptive. If tigers eat enough, there are partners, they can easily reproduce. However, these characteristics of individuals who have conflict need to be understood by society," said Ali.
For information, starting in January 2018, a PT THIP plantation worker named Jumiati was killed by a Bonita tiger. The Riau Natural Resources Conservation Center (BBKSDA) sent a team with related stakeholders to look for Bonita.
March 2018, fell the next victim. A bird wallet maker named Yusri Effendi was killed by Bonita. At that time, the village atmosphere was getting tense. The residents were angry and in a crowd wanted to hunt down and kill Bonita.
However, the team tried hard to calm down. They asked residents not to be anarchist towards the Sumatran tiger.
The government actually made various efforts to find Bonita, such as bringing in tiger handlers from Aceh to animal communicators from Canada. However, these efforts were fruitless.
The team continued their efforts, until finally in April 2018, on the 108th day of the search, Bonita was found. Bonita was taken to the Sumatra rehabilitation center. On July 31, 2019, bonita was released in a conservation area, including another tiger, Atan Bintang.
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