There are between 300 and 400 Sumatran tigers left, all of them on one island, and the population is falling by roughly 40 animals a decade.
Two of them now live on Tenerife. Loro Parque announced on July 16, 2026 that it had taken in Zaza, a two-year-old female, and Lucu, an eight-year-old male, from two different British zoos, paired under the EAZA European Endangered Species Programme.
The last one left
Panthera tigris sumatrae is the smallest tiger subspecies and the darkest coated. It is also the only surviving tiger of the Sunda Islands. The Javan tiger and the Bali tiger are both extinct.
That is the fact worth sitting with. Three tiger subspecies evolved on the Indonesian islands. Two are gone within living memory. The third has a few hundred animals left.
What a transfer decision involves
Zaza and Lucu were not paired because two zoos had spare tigers. The EEP works from a full genealogical profile for each animal: birth date, kinship, ancestry, previous transfers, family links, then age, health, temperament, welfare and whether the move is physically feasible.
“Cada traslado dentro de un programa coordinado como el EEP responde a criterios cientificos muy rigurosos y pone de manifiesto la importancia de la cooperacion entre zoologicos modernos para proteger especies que se encuentran en una situacion extremadamente vulnerable en la naturaleza”
Every transfer within a coordinated program like the EEP answers to very rigorous scientific criteria, and it demonstrates the importance of cooperation between modern zoos to protect species that are in an extremely vulnerable situation in the wild
Wolfgang Kiessling, president of Loro Parque, in a statement translated from Spanish
Whether they ever breed depends on welfare, on whether the two animals get along, and on the EEP coordinator, not on the park.
That is the same machinery that placed the Somali wild ass foals at Tierpark Berlin: the studbook decides, and the institution executes.
“Acoger a una nueva pareja de tigres de Sumatra supone un compromiso a largo plazo, y nuestra prioridad es garantizar que ambos animales dispongan del tiempo, el espacio y los cuidados especializados que necesitan mientras se adaptan a su nuevo hogar”
Taking in a new pair of Sumatran tigers is a long-term commitment, and our priority is to make sure both animals have the time, the space and the specialized care they need while they adapt to their new home
Mike Jordan, zoological director of Loro Parque, in a statement translated from Spanish
Jordan, who joined Loro Parque as zoological director in April 2025, is measuring the commitment in decades. A tiger can live past twenty.
Source: Loro Parque. Quotations translated from the Spanish.
