Naturalists in Algeria have filmed a Saharan cheetah, a subspecies listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List, for the first time in a decade, the national parks authority said.

The animal was spotted in the Hoggar Mountains national park in the vast country's desert south, parks official Salah Amokrane told the state-run APS news agency.

Amokrane was speaking at the release on Monday of a documentary on the work of the park's scientists, which includes images of the cheetah taken in the Atakor volcanic field whose peaks approach a height of 3,000 metres (9,800 feet).

The Saharan cheetah is quite different in appearance from the other African cheetahs. Its coat is shorter and paler in colour.

Its range is now limited to isolated pockets across the Sahara and Sahel from Mali in the west to the Central African Republic in the east.

The subspecies was last seen in the Hoggar Mountains in 2008-10 when four individuals were recorded by camera traps.

In 2012, the International Union for Conservation of Nature estimated the remaining population in Algeria at just 37 individuals.

Endangered Sumatran tiger found dead in Indonesia
Pekanbaru, Indonesia (AFP) May 19, 2020 - A Sumatran tiger has been found dead in an apparent case of poaching, Indonesian authorities said Tuesday, underscoring the threats to the survival of the critically endangered species.

The 18-month-old male's decomposing body was found on Monday with its leg caught in a trap near a palm oil plantation in Sumatra's Riau province.

"It had already been dead for several days when the team found it," said local conservation agency head Suharyono, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

"We concluded it was intentional because the hunter tied a pig carcass to the trap in order to attract and kill the tiger."

Hunters often kill tigers to sell their skins to collectors.

Poaching is responsible for almost 80 per cent of Sumatran tiger deaths, according to TRAFFIC, a global wildlife trade monitoring network.

In February, a Sumatran tiger was found dead in Bengkulu province after being caught in a hunter's trap.

A month earlier, authorities in Aceh province arrested a man after he offered to sell a tiger skin to an undercover officer for around 90 million rupiah ($6,070).

Less than 400 Sumatran tigers are believed to remain in the wild.

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