Population of Komodo Dragons close to Extinction

TEMPO Interactive, Kupang:In Padar Island , for instance, there are no komodos left since 2000. “The komodos in Padar Island has become totally extinct. We cannot find any komodo waste anymore. We are not sure what caused their disappearance but we believe it is because of illegal deer and pig hunting, also the change of their habitat due to forest destruction by fire,” said the Komodo National Park chief, Ramang Isaka, contacted by phone.

Between the 1980s and the 1990s, there were quite a number of komodo dragons in Padar Island . But many illegal hunters deliberately burned the forest, causing a smaller space for these animals to live and the fire could have even killed them.

He added that these hunters have become a serious threat to the komodo population in the last few years. “We think there is a total of just 2.500 komodo dragons living in the islands of Komodo, Rinca and Gili Motang,” he said.

He said the komodo can only live in dense, wet forests that can provide them with a lot of food. “The fact is that deer and pigs are declining and most of the forest area have been destroyed by illegal burning,” he said.

The caretakers at the Komodo National Park have had to work hard to preserve the rare species. “We are still studying the causes of the komodo’s disappearance in Padar Island. This month we will conduct a study on the environment of Padar Island and list the existing komodo’s food sources,” he said.

Meanwhile, the number of foreign tourists keeps rising in the last couple of years. Until the first quarter of 2008, around 1.7000 international and 1.010 domestic visitor visited East Nusa Tenggara province, site of the komodos at the Komodo National Park .