Putin's famous tigress encounter questioned
Source: Agencies |
March 17, 2012, Saturday
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A TIGER can't change its stripes -- which is leading Russians to wonder if Vladimir Putin needs to change his story about which one he shot.
In one of the macho photo moments the Russian leader often indulges in, he was shown on an expedition in the Far East in 2008 with preservationists tracking wild Amur tigers. According to the video footage, Putin shot one of the rare beasts with a tranquilizer gun so Russian scientists could put a GPS collar on the tiger.
Putin's website later showed photos of what it claimed to be the same tiger, in the wild.
But environmentalist Dmitry Molodtsov, who runs a website about the big cats, posted an investigation this month indicating that the tiger shot by Putin isn't the same one shown later on Putin's video.
That leads him to suggest the tiger that Putin shot wasn't a wild specimen but a docile animal from a zoo.
Putin is known for stage-managed media appearances -- petting a polar bear, riding a horse bare-chested and hanging out with leather-clad bikers. The images have endeared him to many Russians and provoked scorn among others - in particular last year's video footage of him finding ancient Greek artifacts while scuba diving, which his spokesman Dmitry Peskov later admitted had been planted on the seabed.
Peskov could not be reached yesterday about the tiger encounter. But Natalya Remennikova, project coordinator at the government-funded Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution in Moscow, which is in charge of the Amur tiger preservation program, dismissed Molodtsov's claim as untrue.
"Somebody made it up or they thought they saw something suspicious," she said, adding the report could be aimed to smear Putin, the current prime minister and president-elect.
Photos on Putin's website do show tigers with different coat patterns.
Vladimir Krever of the Russian branch of the World Wildlife Fund agreed.
"What I have seen online are two different animals," Krever said. But he said he cannot vouch for the authenticity of the photograph and suggested the camera might have captured another tiger.
In one of the macho photo moments the Russian leader often indulges in, he was shown on an expedition in the Far East in 2008 with preservationists tracking wild Amur tigers. According to the video footage, Putin shot one of the rare beasts with a tranquilizer gun so Russian scientists could put a GPS collar on the tiger.
Putin's website later showed photos of what it claimed to be the same tiger, in the wild.
But environmentalist Dmitry Molodtsov, who runs a website about the big cats, posted an investigation this month indicating that the tiger shot by Putin isn't the same one shown later on Putin's video.
That leads him to suggest the tiger that Putin shot wasn't a wild specimen but a docile animal from a zoo.
Putin is known for stage-managed media appearances -- petting a polar bear, riding a horse bare-chested and hanging out with leather-clad bikers. The images have endeared him to many Russians and provoked scorn among others - in particular last year's video footage of him finding ancient Greek artifacts while scuba diving, which his spokesman Dmitry Peskov later admitted had been planted on the seabed.
Peskov could not be reached yesterday about the tiger encounter. But Natalya Remennikova, project coordinator at the government-funded Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution in Moscow, which is in charge of the Amur tiger preservation program, dismissed Molodtsov's claim as untrue.
"Somebody made it up or they thought they saw something suspicious," she said, adding the report could be aimed to smear Putin, the current prime minister and president-elect.
Photos on Putin's website do show tigers with different coat patterns.
Vladimir Krever of the Russian branch of the World Wildlife Fund agreed.
"What I have seen online are two different animals," Krever said. But he said he cannot vouch for the authenticity of the photograph and suggested the camera might have captured another tiger.
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