"The tiger attacked the man as he was relieving himself near the base camp of his company on Monday evening," Lukman, from Riau province's nature conservation office, told AFP.

Lukman said his office would send a team to the area later Wednesday to try to trap alive the animal, of which only 400 to 500 are estimated to remain on the island.

The animal "continued to appear in the area until late in the evening, after workers using heavy machinery managed to get it to drop the body," he said.

The company was logging secondary forest in the Kampar Kiri Hilir area.

Villagers planned a ritual aimed at warding off further attacks which they attribute to the spirits of 11 headmen controlling the area being angry, the state Antara news agency reported.

Village chief Burhan told the agency that a three-day ritual to appease them would involve residents staying home to pray, planting yellow bamboo and spreading rice in front of their houses.

Tigers on Sumatra, one of Indonesia's biggest islands, have killed about 40 people in the past five years, with 18 deaths in 2004 alone, as their dwindling habitat brings them into contact with humans.

Poaching and destruction by loggers, legal or illegal, were forcing the Sumatran tigers into smaller areas and causing an increase in attacks.

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