Description

This 2000 Rupiah is part of an “endangered wildlife” commemorative series, which on the reverse of the coin shows the Javan Tiger.

The photograph on the right is of a live Javan tiger, P. t. sondaica, was taken in 1938 at Ujung Kulon and published in A. Hoogerwerf’s “Ujung Kulon: The Land of the last Javan Rhinoceros”.

Javan Tiger. * Source ;

The Javan tiger was very common on Java till the end of the 19th century, but rapidly declined when the expansion of humans was taking its toll on the habitat of the tiger.

In the 20th century large parts of the rain forests were cleared in favor of rice fields, to feed the growing population, and to make room for all sorts of plantations.

Hunting, poisoning and armed conflicts like WW2 and the War for independence would also contribute to the downfall of this majestic animal.

Javan Tiger shot in 1941 in the region of West Java. * Source ;

The latest official sightings of the Javan Tiger were in the late seventies, and the tiger has been declared extinct since the nineties, when no evidence could be presented that any alive specimens were to be found.

All though there have been people who allegedly have seen, or photographed a tiger since it was declared extinct,

Teams that went out to investigate couldn’t yield any evidence to back up these claims. So it’s officially still extinct but let’s hope they survived.

Obverse :

Seal of Indonesia.

Text (Bahasa Indonesia)    : BANK INDONESIA – 1974 – BHINNEKA TUNGGAL IKA

Text (English)                       : BANK OF INDONESIA – 1974 – UNITY THRU DIVERSITY

Reverse :

Javan Tiger

Text (Bahasa Indonesia)    : 2000 Rp

Text (English)                      : 2000 Rupiah

Check out the 2000 Rupiah Coin on my Youtube channel :