Tiger that Putin set free roams into China
Print Edition
CHINA is on the hunt for a Siberian tiger released into the wild by Russian President Vladimir Putin after the animal roamed across the border, probably in search of food.
The tiger, named Kuzia, was one of three of the rare wild cats that Putin helped release into Russia’s remote Amur region in eastern Siberia in May.
Tagged with a tracking device, it has been recorded in the Taipinggou nature reserve in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province.
“A Russian expert called to tell us the location of the tiger and expressed the hope that we can protect it,” said Chen Zhigang, director of the reserve in Luobei County.
Chen said they had dispatched personnel to remove any possible traps and more than 60 cameras had been set up to try to capture its image.
Forestry police officers are notifying local farmers of the tiger’s presence.
It should find plenty of food among the reserve’s wildlife, Chen said, though officials were prepared to release cattle into the area to feed it.
Fewer than 500 Siberian tigers remain in the wild, mainly in eastern Russia, northeast China and northern parts of the Korean Peninsula.
Hundreds of them once roamed the lush pine and oak forests of northeast China, but due to centuries of poaching only about 18 to 22 are believed to still survive.
Listed as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List, they have fared better in Russia, where more than 400 still live, sometimes preying on local bears.
Chen said Siberian tigers had not been found in Luobei County before. However, traces of the species, including infrared pictures, footprints and feces, had emerged in other parts of Heilongjiang thanks to its improving habitat.
Since April, commercial logging has been banned in Heilongjiang’s two major forests, the Greater and Lesser Hinggan Mountains in a bid to restore the ecosystem.
Forestry authorities discovered traces of Siberian tigers in a planted forest zone, the Linkou Forest Zone, for the first time, suggesting that tigers have begun to migrate into new forests inland.
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