Photographers Blog

Sumatra Island, Indonesia

By Beawiharta

Over a three-week period in February, I covered two very different animal-related assignments in Indonesia – the slaughtering of snakes in West Java and the preservation of the endangered tiger in Sumatra.

In West Java, Wakira along with his 10 workers kill hundreds of snakes each day for their skin at his slaughterhouse in Cirebon. While in Sumatra, real estate tycoon Tomy Winata saves and releases tigers into the wild at his Tambling Wildlife Nature Conservation. I didn’t enjoy the snake slaughterhouse assignment because snakes are dangerous and disgusting, but I really liked visiting the tigers in Tambling.

After a nearly 90 minute flight on a Super Puma helicopter from Indonesia’s capital Jakarta, we landed at the Tambling Wildlife Nature Conservation on the southern tip of Sumatra Island. The 45,000 hectare forest reserve can only be reached by boat or plane. As soon as we reached the Sumatran Tiger Rescue Centre on our golf cart, we could immediately hear the roars of the tigers. Seeing three ferocious tigers up close was shocking to me. At times, it was difficult to move and I trembled in fear as the view from my camera lens made me forget that they were actually caged up.

As I was taking pictures of Tommy Winata, the owner of TWNC, he gave a high five to one of the tigers, who will be released next year. After taking pictures and blowing them up on my 5d screen, I could see the tiger’s face and his look was friendly, not threatening. It could be that the tiger knows when Tommy is around it usually means its feeding time. Tigers get fed live pigs every three days.

TWNC has released five tigers since 2009, while eight are still under their care. One more tiger will be released next year. This was feeding day, so I chose the largest tiger to take pictures of. Despite being caged up, he still maintained the instincts of being in the wild. I waited for the animal keeper to feed the tiger. The keeper grabbed the feet of the pig, which typically weighs between 10 and 12 kilograms, and released the animal into the cage. The tiger ran toward the pig and lifted his paw in what seemed like an attempt to kill his prey. But in fact, the tiger was playing with the animal before killing it.

Since my return to Romania in January 2009, I longed to cover the pig festival.

My colleague Bogdan Cristel had covered it in past years. But I could not as I was assigned to edit and process the World Ski Championship, which takes place during the same period. Last year, I again edited skiing and thought that this year would be the same: me editing and Bogdan covering it. In January however, I was surprised when the organizers changed the date, providing me with the possibility to go and cover this story.

I remember as a child I once saw a pig being slaughtered, but my memory is blurred. As a city boy, living with my mother on the third floor and my grandparents on the first floor of an apartment block, I never experienced what was normal for village folk. For villagers, pigs, cows, chicken, ducks and geese were slaughtered in the backyard to provide food for the entire family. For me, all livestock came from butchers or supermarkets, frozen or fresh, nicely labeled and packaged.

What was of interest to me was how they slaughter the pigs. I wondered if they were using electricity according to European Union regulations or following a traditional method and using a knife? I discovered that traditional method is allowed during the festival, so people can see how it was done in the past.