BEIJING, July 9 (Xinhuanet) -- It's not unusual for an old or injured tiger to become a man-eater, but so far a Sumatran tiger -- the world's most critically endangered species -- who lost the lower half of its right front leg to get free of a snare has resisted the temptation.

Four photographs, taken in March and May of this year inside Tesso Nilo National Park in central Sumatra, show the male tiger appears to be in good physical condition other than the missing paw, said Sunarto, a tiger biologist in Riau with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which funded the camera trap and related research. Like many Indonesians, he goes by a single name.

Sunarto said the tiger is probably the same one reported caught in a snare in November 2006 and that somehow scratched or chewed off its paw to escape, leaving part of its leg in the snare, Sunarto said.

"The use of snares is not only threatening the remaining tiger population, it also leads to a bigger problem: human-tiger conflict," said Sunarto, leader of the antipoaching team. "When a tiger is sick or crippled, its ability to hunt and catch natural prey is reduced significantly. As a result, such tigers search for food in nearby villages, attacking livestock or even people."

Sumatran tigers are only found on that island, where they have been hunted for the Asian black market. Their habitat is being lost to agricultural and logging operations. They also are threatened by snares set by poachers .

Since 2005, the WWF and Tesso Nilo National Park and other antipoaching officials have confiscated at least 101 snares, 75 of them inside the protected areas of the park and Rimbang Baling Wildlife Reserve. Of the 101 snares, 23 were identified as targeting tigers. The rest were set to control pests or catch bushmeat in the form of wild boar, muntjac and sambar deer and sunbears.

The antipoaching effort tries various methods to urge people to stop using snares and to educate them on the risks of such practices.

"It's particularly upsetting that this happened inside a national park, where tigers are supposed to enjoy protection," Sunarto said in a prepared statement. "This tiger looks like he's in good condition, but his future is uncertain. The Sumatran tiger is at such low levels, we can't afford to lose even one individual to a snare."

(Agencies)