Wednesday’s powerful 8.6-magnitude earthquake that struck off Indonesia’s western coast at 2:38 p.m. local time, was followed by fears of a tsunami, gripping a region that still had the 2004 tsunami -- one that ravaged numerous coastal communities along the Indian Ocean and killing more than 230,000 people -- fresh in their minds.

Three of the world's subspecies of tigers are now extinct. A new study found that the Sumatran tiger subspecies is nearing extinction as a result of human activities, particularly the conversion of natural forests into forestry and agricultural plantations, leading to habitat loss.

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program (SOCP) announced today Sumatra's first ever successful sentence of an illegal orangutan owner and trader in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia.

The Worldwide Wildlife Fund (WWF) said on Tuesday that the Sumatran elephant could be extinct in the wild in the next 30 years.

The WWF said that its survey in the forest Bukit Tigapuluh (Thirty Hills) in Indonesia has captured five rare wild cat species on camera.