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A 92-year-old man arrested in March for trapping and slaughtering 44 Sumatran tigers over his lifetime has died before he could be tried for killing the rare cats.

Wiryo Asmada’s arrest came after the Riau Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) had placed him under surveillance following a tip from a resident.

“Investigators have learned that he has passed on. There is also an official letter confirming his death,” BKSDA head Trisnu Danisworo told the Jakarta Globe on Wednesday.

Trisnu refused to elaborate on the specifics of Wiryo’s death, saying only that he had died at the beginning of July.

Conservation officials in March put an end to Wiryo’s 75-year trapping career that had seen him kill at least 44 of the rare cats, catching him red-handed trying to sell the skin of his latest victim — a 23-year-old tiger that he had trapped on March 3 in Pelor village, Kuala Cenaku.

The aged hunter had faced up to five years in prison and a fine of Rp 100 million ($11,000).

Authorities believe Wiryo was involved with an international network trading in tiger parts. Wiryo had admitted to having regular customers in Singapore.

He had said he had been killing Sumatran tigers since he was 17. He confessed to having killed at least 44 tigers in Riau since 1960. The tally, however, did not include other tigers Wiryo may have hunted outside of Riau.

Wiryo, better known as Pak Jenggot because of his beard, said he usually sold the tigers’ body parts — skin, bones, meat, fangs and claws — to customers in Singapore.

Osmantri, from the World Wide Fund’s Sumatran Tiger Trade Monitoring program in Riau, said the arrest of Wiryo had been a positive step because few cases involving the trade in Sumatran tigers were ever solved, but that much more needed to be done. He added that only two suspects had ever been arrested in connection with the trade.

Osmantri said BKSDA in particular needed to step up its efforts against international syndicates involved in the illegal tiger trade.

“With all its resources, BKSDA only managed to arrest an elderly hunter. BKSDA should have been able to arrest the collectors, the buyers and anyone who ordered the Sumatran tiger,” Osmantri said.

An official at BKSDA’s office in Rengat district, Murmaidin Iskandar, said the hunting of Sumatran tigers had become more common in the past three years. According to the World Wildlife Fund, there are fewer than 300 Sumatran tigers remaining in the wild in Indonesia, half of them in Riau.  Budi Otmansyah