AMUR TIGERS RETURN TO RUSSIAN STRONGHOLD

The successful restoration of a population of Amur tigers is a rare conservation success story.

A recent study highlights the successful restoration of tiger populations in Russia's Pri-Amur region, an area where tigers had disappeared for over five decades. Between 2012 and 2021, conservation efforts led by the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Geographical Society, with key contributions from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), focused on rehabilitating orphaned tiger cubs and releasing them back into the wild.

The initiative began by rescuing cubs from the Sikhote-Alin Mountains, one of Russia’s remaining tiger strongholds. These cubs were raised in specialized enclosures designed to limit human interaction while teaching them critical survival skills, including hunting live prey. Experts, including those from the WCS Bronx Zoo, played a vital role in preparing the cubs for their release.

Young Amur tigers have been successfully reintroduced to their historic range in Russia’s Pri-Amur region.

Once the young tigers were deemed ready, they were reintroduced to the Pri-Amur region, a part of their historic range adjacent to the Sikhote-Alin Mountains. GPS collars allowed researchers to track their movements and behavior post-release. Data from 132 hunting events revealed that these tigers hunted wild prey in patterns similar to those of wild-born Amur tigers, with minimal livestock predation.

Dale Miquelle, the study’s lead author, emphasized that the success of these rehabilitated tigers demonstrates that orphaned cubs can thrive in the wild if properly prepared. The program reported only one case of conflict, when a tiger in a prey-scarce area in China began hunting livestock and was subsequently relocated to a zoo. Encouragingly, at least 12 cubs have been born in the wild since the program began, offering a blueprint for tiger recovery in other regions with suitable habitats.

Protecting the Amur Tiger

This success is part of Russia’s broader efforts to stabilize its Amur tiger population, which has grown from fewer than 30 individuals in the 1940s to an estimated 580–600 today. This recovery is credited to measures like strict legal protections, habitat preservation, and effective anti-poaching campaigns. Hunting tigers has been outlawed in Russia since 1947, and protected areas such as the Sikhote-Alin Mountains and Primorsky Krai now provide safe havens for tigers and their prey.

Despite these successes, expanding the range of Amur tigers remains a challenge. Logging, agriculture, and infrastructure development have fragmented habitats, while prey depletion outside reserves limits the ability of tigers to establish new territories. These pressures often force tigers into human-dominated landscapes, increasing the risk of conflict, particularly along the Russia-China border, where livestock predation occasionally leads to retaliatory killings.

Conservationists are tackling these issues by restoring degraded habitats, developing wildlife corridors, and boosting prey populations in unprotected areas. Collaborative efforts between Russia and China aim to create cross-border habitat connectivity, while advanced technologies like GPS tracking and camera traps are helping researchers better understand tiger behavior and identify potential expansion zones. These efforts are crucial for ensuring the long-term survival and recovery of the Amur tiger.

A Global Conservation Success Story

This success story from Russia sits within the wider context tiger conservation, which is also largely positive right now.

The Global Tiger Initiative (GTI), launched in 2010, was a groundbreaking international collaboration aimed at reversing the decline of tiger populations worldwide. The centrepiece of the GTI was the adoption of the St. Petersburg Declaration on Tiger Conservation during the 2010 Tiger Summit in Russia, attended by leaders from 13 tiger-range countries.

The declaration set an ambitious target known as the TX2 goal: to double the global wild tiger population by 2022, the next Year of the Tiger in the Chinese zodiac. At the time, wild tiger populations had plummeted to an estimated 3,200 individuals, and the target seemed wildly optimistic to many conservationists.

By 2022, the global tiger population was estimated at approximately 4,500 wild tigers, up from the baseline of 3,200 in 2010. While this figure falls short of the goal to double the population, a 40% increase in numbers is nevertheless a commendable achievement in a global context where many large mammal numbers are decreasing.