A photographer has captured high-quality images of the majestic Sumatran tiger in its natural habitat of the Indonesian jungle after four years of back and forth to Southeast Asia.
The Sumatran tiger is critically endangered; less than 400 individuals are estimated to still roam the island of Sumatra. Both the Bali and Javan tigers, neighboring Indonesian islands, have gone extinct.
“These pictures are the results of long-term work that I started in Sumatra between 2019 and 2020,” Vladimir Cech Jr tells PetaPixel. “From 2020 until the spring of 2025 I installed six homemade DSLR camera traps — I changed them several times but in the end, I succeeded with two camera traps.”
For the first few years of the project, Cech toiled without a result. But when he finally captured his first Sumatran tiger on camera in 2024 he was overcome with joy.
“Crazy… those first years of the project were extremely difficult (including the Covid period) and practically without a positive result,” he says. “When I saw a tiger eye-to-eye on the display of one of my cameras in the fall of 2024, I thought I was dreaming!”
There are very few quality photographs of the Sumatran tiger, partly because of the natural hazards of the jungle — including the weather and other animals. In 2006, a Sumatran tiger ripped a camera trap to pieces placed by a WWF photographer. Most photographs of Sumatran tigers are taken when they are in captivity.
“I learn a lot,” he tells PetaPixel. “About the forest, animals, people that share the island with them, and about myself as well. About patience…to never give up!”
Cech collaborated with the non-profit Justice For Nature for what he calls Project Harimau. Zuzana Koloušková, vice chairman of Justice for Nature, tells the BBC that the Sumatran tiger faces threats from illegal logging, palm oil plantations, and poaching.
“The real threats to Sumatran tigers today are not only deforestation or poaching but also corruption within state authorities,” Koloušková says. “The devastating process caused by massive deforestation for oil palm plantations is drastic, and corruption within government institutions contributes to it.”
“Based on my many years of direct experience in the region, I can say that Indonesia is unable to confront the threats to its environment and biodiversity,” he continues. “But the greatest threat to tigers remains traditional Asian medicine, specifically the demand for tiger bones and other parts of their bodies.”
Despite the multiple threats to its survival, Cech hopes that his work will raise awareness about the Sumatran tiger’s plight. His camera traps captured other wildlife species that also face the threat of extinction; including the Sumatran sun bear, Sumatran serow, and the banded linsang.
Earlier this year, PetaPixel reported on Will Burrard-Lucas’s 12 months operating remote cameras deep in the Congo rainforest to reveal some of the region’s most elusive species in breathtaking detail.
For more information on Cech’s project, head to his website. More of his work can be found on Facebook and Instagram.
Image credits: Photographs by Vladimir Cech Jr
