Photo Dr Paddy Ryan

Photo Dr John Goodrich WCS

Photo: Kristiansand Dyre Park

Tiger at Moscow Zoo

Photo Dr John Goodrich WCS

Photo: Kristiansand Dyre Park

Amur Tigers

The Amur (or Siberian) Tiger has the scientific name is “Panthera tigris altaica” and is the largest living cat in the world. The name ’Siberian’ is actually incorrect because these tigers do not live in Siberia but the Russian Far East in the Amur-Ussuri region of Primorski and Khabarovski Krais (States) whilst a few are found across the border in northern China and Korea.

The Tiger in Russia
The Amur tiger has had a difficult time over the past hundred years with a low of less than 50 individuals in the middle of the twentieth century. It gained protection and numbers increased until the present day when numbers may be up to 400 adult individuals.

Habitat
The habitat of the Amur tiger (and leopard) is a unique forested area in the Russian Far East states of Primorski and Khabarovski Krais. In the summer the forests are dense with varied vegetation which is both deciduous and coniferous but in the winter these forests are cold and snow bound.  Much of the terrain is mountainous and rugged but is now crossed by roads, human settlements and more recently logging roads.  Each adult tiger needs a huge area of land for its territory — up to 40km by 40km for an adult male whilst the female home range is usually smaller.  Amur tigers need much larger areas of habitat to survive due to the relative lack of prey so that any particular area of habitat will have a less dense population than a similar size of habitat in one of the tiger ranges such as India or Thailand.  For this reason a very large area of healthy habitat is needed to sustain a population of Amur tigers that is viable for the future.  Therefore conservation groups are working hard to create protected areas in the Russian Far East and to find ways that humans and tigers can live side by side.

Characteristics

The Amur tiger is the largest and heaviest subspecies of tiger.
To survive winter the tiger has fine but long fur and a layer of fat that allows it to stand the bitter cold. The coat is lighter in colour than other tigers and it has large paws which act rather like snow shoes.

Tiger Prey and Human Hunting

As an extremely powerful and skilful carnivore Amur tigers catch large prey such as deer and boar but they have been known to take domestic dogs from villages when hard pushed to find food.  This does lead to tiger/human conflict but part of the conservation work undertaken by ALTA partners is to lessen this effect and to find ways to reduce any such nuisance which ultimately leads to better protection for the tigers themselves.  Another way that humans and tigers collide is over hunting prey - which both species target!  Russians have a tradition of forest hunting and target the same big prey as the tigers.  Therefore the tigers are sometimes seen as competition.  To try to turn this situation around AMUR ALTA partner WCS is working with local hunting groups to establish hunting support for tiger conservation. Click here to read in detail about WCS 'Tigers and Hunters' programme WCS

Current Threats
Now the Tiger in Russia faces a number of threats — some old and some new.

• Hunting of Prey — the tiger prey is also hunted by impoverished local people so there is direct competition with man.

• Illegal poaching — hunting tigers in Russia was banned in 1947 but with the dissolution of the Soviet Union illegal hunting has been fueled by demand from across the borders in China and Korea.

• Traditional Chinese Medicine believes that tiger parts will cure disease.  However alternatives are available and all ALTA partners are working hard to stop this terrible trade.  In the summer of 2007 the world's tiger charities got together to try to work with the Chinese Government so that they take a more effective approach to tiger conservation. What can you do?  See our NEWS page for the action you can take. In Russia we still loose up to 30 tigers a year from this terrible trade.  We have found that very few tigers die of natural causes - most meet their end at the hand of man.  The numbers lost to poachers has reduced over the years even in the face of increased poaching pressure - why?  This is due to the effective anti-poaching work carried out by the ALTA partners - some of which is paid for by AMUR.

• Loss of habitat to FIRE and LOGGING (both legal and illegal).  Whilst areas of habitat are lost to forest clearance, fires and logging there is the added problem that roads built for logging actually increase the human access into remote areas.  This causes more disturbance and most importantly gives increased access deep into the forests for tiger poachers.

Photo Dr Paddy Ryan