Living with Tigers: The High Cost of Saving a Species
The return of the Siberian tiger is a rare conservation success—but one that now brings new dangers to the villages of Russia’s Far East.
I came across an article in the Times over the weekend that caught my eye, as it was a great example of the challenges faced by conservation even when it is apparently successful. The story described how a man in a remote village in Russia’s Far East had come face-to-face with a tiger on a track near the village of Vasilkovka. The man had demonstrated the presence of mind not only to shout loud expletives at the tiger (I have always been told to act aggressively if cornered by a large carnivore), but also to get his phone out and film the entire encounter.
Remarkably, it worked. The tiger paused, seemingly startled by the commotion, then turned and loped back into the woods, averting a potential attack. Russian state television later praised the unnamed local for his “nerves of steel,” after video of the foul-mouthed standoff, shot on the man’s phone, spread across social media.
This unlikely confrontation between man and tiger ended without harm, but it highlights a larger unfolding drama in the taiga of Primorsky Krai and Khabarovsk Krai. Once on the brink of extinction, Siberian tigers (also known as Amur tigers) are making a steady comeback in Russia’s Far East – and increasingly encountering the humans who live there.
The video from Vasilkovka was just one of many recent incidents. Over the past winter, at least three people have been killed by Siberian tigers, along with numerous dogs and even horses, as hungry big cats wander into villages in search of food. Sightings of tigers prowling near homes have become alarmingly common. Residents in wooded hamlets now swap daily reports of tracks or livestock gone missing, and many say they are afraid to go out after dark. The very conservation success that brought the “Lord of the Forest” back from near oblivion has also brought new dangers to people’s doorsteps.
Conservation Success and a Comeback Story
The Amur tiger’s return is, in many ways, a remarkable conservation success. Less than a century ago, the Siberian tiger was on the verge of vanishing. By the 1940s, rampant hunting and habitat loss had left perhaps only a few dozen tigers clinging to survival in the vast forests of the Far East. In 1947, the Soviet Union banned tiger hunting, marking the first major step toward saving the species. Gradually, the population began to recover. By the 1980s, an estimated 200 to 250 wild tigers roamed the Sikhote-Alin range in Primorsky Krai. International attention later helped bolster efforts – from stricter anti-poaching patrols to habitat protections – and by the early 21st century the Siberian tiger population stabilized in the low hundreds.
The Amur tiger’s return is, in many ways, a remarkable conservation success. Less than a century ago, the Siberian tiger was on the verge of vanishing.
In recent years, that recovery has continued. Official estimates now put Russia’s wild tiger population at around 750 animals, up roughly 40% from a few decades ago. These big cats, the largest tiger subspecies on the planet, primarily live in Russia’s Primorye and Khabarovsk territories, with smaller numbers in the Amur region and the Jewish Autonomous Region. A handful also roam across the border into northeast China, which has seen its own tiger numbers rise from near-zero in the 1990s to about 50–70 today, thanks to transboundary conservation efforts.
In 2010, Russia hosted a Global Tiger Summit in St. Petersburg, where it joined 12 other countries in pledging to double wild tiger numbers worldwide. President Vladimir Putin has personally championed Amur tiger conservation – famously helping biologists tranquilize and fit a GPS collar on a tiger in 2008, and establishing a specialized Amur Tiger Conservation Foundation in 2013. New protected areas have been created, such as the sprawling Bikin National Park and Land of the Leopard National Park, to safeguard tiger habitat.
Villages on Edge: Living with Tigers Next Door
The rebound of the Siberian tiger is something to celebrate. But for the people living in tiger country, daily life has become fraught with anxiety. Encounters between tigers and humans are now more frequent than at any time in recent memory. In 2024, authorities in Primorsky Krai recorded 290 “conflict situations” involving tigers – incidents ranging from sightings in villages to attacks on livestock or pets – up from 170 the year before. Each of those numbers tells a story of a frightened community or a tragic loss of animals, and occasionally, human life. As one local official put it, “we have to learn to live with this” new reality.
Many residents of small settlements feel they are the ones under threat. In the village of Primorsky (namesake of the region) on the eastern coast, locals say tigers have prowled the outskirts for months on end. “The predators appear in the village as darkness falls,” a group of residents wrote in a January plea to authorities, adding that they had been “living in fear” throughout the winter. Parents now escort children to school along the snowy roads at dawn, carrying flashlights – and in some cases rifles – fearful that a tiger could be around any dimly lit corner. “Every time we walk out early, we’re afraid we could meet a tiger,” the villagers’ petition said, urging officials to capture the animals and move them deeper into the wilderness.
Many residents of small settlements feel they are the ones under threat.
Similar stories are emerging across Primorsky and neighboring Khabarovsk Krai. In one settlement in Khabarovsk region, a school briefly suspended pre-dawn classes in mid-winter until authorities could sweep the surrounding forest for a tiger seen near the playground. In another village, Filippovka, residents reported a tiger snatching dogs from front yards; one family’s husky was dragged off into the night, leaving only a chain behind. “People are really scared,” says Elina, a resident of a small community near Vladivostok, describing how villagers now bolt their doors at dusk and keep a watch on their pets. “Predators are unpredictable, and right now they’re constantly hungry because their usual prey is gone. We used to have plenty of wild boar, but their numbers have dropped over the past two years,” she explains. The result is that tigers that normally would stay deep in the woods are wandering into backyards in search of easy meals – often domestic dogs or livestock.
Why Are Tigers Roaming Into Communities?
Ironically, the recent spike in human–tiger encounters is partly a consequence of conservation success – and partly a result of ecological problems. As tiger numbers have rebounded, their range has expanded, and younger tigers in search of territory sometimes venture closer to settled areas. Yet experts say it isn’t simply a case of “too many tigers”. In fact, the core reason tigers are moving into villages is what’s happening to their food supply.
Over the last several years, the tigers’ prey base in the wild has been severely depleted by multiple factors. Chief among them is disease: an outbreak of African swine fever (a viral illness deadly to pigs) swept through the Russian Far East around 2019. It wiped out an estimated 75% of the wild boar population in some areas. Wild boar are a key prey species for Amur tigers; with far fewer boar to hunt, tigers have had to turn to alternative food sources. They do prey on red deer and roe deer as well, but those species tend to stay nearer to valley meadows and the fringes of civilization – bringing hungry tigers uncomfortably close to human habitations.
By late 2022, reports of food-stressed tigers in Khabarovsk Krai skyrocketed. A scientific monitoring program in that region documented 183 tiger-human conflicts in just three winter months (Dec 2022–Feb 2023) across dozens of villages – a twenty-fold increase compared to 2015. The researchers noted that even though tiger numbers had grown, conflicts were rising disproportionately, indicating acute hunger was driving tigers to seek “easier” prey like dogs and cattle.
Over the last several years, the tigers’ prey base in the wild has been severely depleted by multiple factors.
Another major culprit is habitat loss and forest degradation. The taiga of the southern Russian Far East – often called the Ussuri Taiga – has been under intense pressure from logging, both legal and illegal. At a recent expert hearing in Moscow, scientists warned that unchecked logging and unsustainable hunting have devastated the tiger’s ecosystem. “Over the past 30 years, forest fragmentation in the Sikhote-Alin has increased by 50 percent. The Ussuri Taiga is disappearing before our eyes,” says Pavel Krestov, director of the Botanical Garden in Vladivostok.
The Siberian pine and Korean cedar forests that produce pine nuts – a critical food for wild boar and deer – have been heavily logged, and the lucrative pine nuts themselves are harvested at industrial scale. In 2024 alone, Russia exported 2.8 million kilograms of pine nuts from the region, stripping the woods of a key resource that sustains deer and boar. Poaching of ungulates compounds the problem. “In the 1980s and 1990s, most hunting operations focused on fur trapping, but now they’re all about meat,” veteran biologist Viktor Lukarevsky explained at the hearing. With deer and boar being overhunted for venison, tigers simply have far fewer wild animals to eat.
Lukarevsky and others take issue with the notion that tiger attacks are happening because there are “too many tigers.” The evidence, they argue, points instead to tigers being driven out of their deep-forest haunts by starvation. “The tiger isn’t leaving its traditional habitat because its population is booming,” Lukarevsky says. “It’s leaving because there’s nothing left to eat.” This sobering assessment suggests that unless the prey base is restored and habitat loss is curbed, conflict will continue even if tiger numbers level off. In short, a conservation victory (more tigers) has collided with an environmental crisis (less forest and prey), creating a perfect storm of human–wildlife conflict.
Managing the Conflict: Can Tigers and People Coexist?
Russian authorities are now grappling with how to keep both people and tigers safe. It’s a delicate balance: the Siberian tiger is a legally protected endangered species and a source of national pride, yet it’s also a very real threat to those living near it. Local governments in the Far East have rolled out a variety of measures. In Primorye, Governor Oleg Kozhemyako ordered wildlife officials to increase the feeding of deer and wild boar in the forests – essentially stocking feeding stations so that tigers’ prey have enough food to rebound. The hope is that healthier prey populations will keep tigers fed in situ and away from villages.
Authorities have also intensified monitoring of known “problem tigers.” In one case this winter, a tiger that repeatedly prowled near the village of Barabash was deemed a danger and was captured by rangers; finding it to be healthy (not injured or sick), they relocated it far to the north and released it in a sparsely populated area. Such relocations are a common tactic – more than a dozen tigers have been translocated in the past few years when they got too comfortable near towns. However, officials acknowledge this is a short-term fix at best. “Of course, we’re worried another tiger will just take its place,” says Irina, a resident of Barabash, noting that the forests around her village remain depleted of boar, so new tigers keep coming as long as there’s easy pickings like unguarded dogs.
One promising avenue is greater involvement of local communities in crafting solutions. Many residents of the taiga want to protect tigers – they are proud that the iconic animal lives in their backyard – but they also want to protect their families and livelihoods. Programs that provide compensation for lost livestock or dogs could help alleviate anger and prevent vigilantism. In some tiger-range countries like India and Nepal, compensation and insurance schemes have been effective in maintaining public support for tiger conservation despite conflicts.
One promising avenue is greater involvement of local communities in crafting solutions.
Pilot projects in the Russian Far East are now exploring similar ideas. Additionally, public awareness campaigns are emphasizing practical steps for villagers: keeping dogs in enclosed pens at night, installing tiger-proof fencing for livestock enclosures, traveling in groups when in the forest, and promptly reporting tiger signs to authorities. Over time, officials say, people can adapt to living alongside tigers – much as communities in North America have adapted to living in bear country by securing garbage and exercising caution. “We have to regulate the situation and remember that the tiger was, is and will be lord of the forest,” Governor Kozhemyako remarked, suggesting that humans in tiger territory must take precautions as guests on the tiger’s domain. His words acknowledge a reality that conservationists echo: coexistence is possible, but it requires respect for the tiger’s presence and proactive efforts to reduce conflict.
The Amur Tiger: Symbol of the Wild East
Beyond the immediate challenges, the Siberian tiger holds a powerful symbolic significance in Russia and around the world. Weighing up to 300 kilograms (660 pounds) and stretching nearly 3 meters in length, the Amur tiger is an awe-inspiring emblem of wilderness. In Russian folklore and indigenous cultures of the Far East, the tiger commands deep respect. The Udege and Nanai peoples of Primorye, for example, traditionally referred to the tiger as “Amba” or “Grandfather”, a near-mythic guardian of the forest. To encounter one was considered both a great honor and a great danger – a meeting with the forest’s spirit itself. That reverence persists today in the way many locals talk about the big cats. Even as they fear them, villagers often express admiration for the tiger’s grace and power. It is not uncommon to hear a hunter or a farmer describe a tiger sighting with a mix of fear, respect, and even awe.
The Siberian tiger also became a symbol of Russia’s conservation efforts on the global stage. When Vladimir Putin famously posed with a sedated tigress in 2008 – helping scientists tag the animal – the images broadcast a message that Russia was serious about saving its tigers. Since then, the Kremlin has often invoked the Amur tiger in environmental campaigns and international diplomacy, presenting the country as a steward of this endangered species. In 2010, at the Tiger Summit in St. Petersburg, Putin quipped that the tiger’s survival was a matter of national honor, tying the species’ fate to Russia’s image. The tiger’s likeness adorns murals in Vladivostok and Khabarovsk, and its name has been given to sports teams, vodka brands, and festivals in the Far East. To many, the Amur tiger is a flagship species – by protecting it, an entire ecosystem (the taiga forest and its myriad inhabitants) is also safeguarded.
Striking a Balance for the Future
As the sun sets over Primorye’s endless forests on a winter evening, villagers double-check their doors and flashlights, and tigers begin to stir in the twilight gloom. The scene captures a new reality forged by decades of hard-won conservation gains. The return of the Siberian tiger from near-extinction is undeniably a triumph – a testament to what concerted action by governments, scientists, and communities can achieve. The fact that roughly 500–750 Amur tigers now prowl the wild, making it the largest tiger population outside India, is a bright spot in the otherwise bleak picture of global big cat conservation. Few other tiger subspecies have seen such a rebound. This success, however, comes with a complex aftermath. Tigers are back, and they are reclaiming their ancient role as apex predators of the taiga, which inevitably brings them into contact – and conflict – with humans.
The man who stood down a tiger with nothing but his voice and a volley of curses has already passed into local legend. His story has been told and retold, a mixture of humour (at the absurd heroism of yelling expletives at a tiger) and relief that it ended well. Many locals, while chuckling at the tale, privately hope they won’t have to personally replicate his feat. Coexistence with tigers, they know, will require more than nerve and profanity – it will demand resources, smart policies, and the continued commitment of all stakeholders to ensure that people and tigers can thrive together in Russia’s Far East.
I've followed Amur tiger recovery for a long time and am saddened to learn more about the increasing conflicts with people. A great example of how critical habitat preservation is to species re-introduction. Thank you for a great article.
it was really good to read this story. So constructive and positive, it's almost like hiking through Provence for days on end with my little Rottweiler.