Residing in the coniferous and broadleaf forests east of the Amur River, Siberian tigers are solitary cats that enjoy a relatively quiet ecosystem devoid of much human activity. Occupying huge territories of up to four thousand square miles, these Amur tigers are often on the move, covering great distances in search of prey in their isolated wilderness. A Siberian tiger was once recorded to have traveled more than six hundred miles in the space of three weeks in search of food. The big cat hunts a variety of animals, including elk, roe deer, sika deer, musk deer, and goral, although red deer and wild boar make up most of its diet.

Opportunistic predators, tigers have been known to take even rabbits, hares, pikas, and fish (usually salmon) at times. The undisputed king of carnivores, the Siberian tiger does not spare even the great Russian brown bear from its predatory activities. Cats take out bears while they are hibernating and attack and kill them. On other occasions, brown bear deaths have been recorded in the open, demonstrating the tiger’s superiority over the bear as a predator on land. Asian black bears don’t get a break from a hungry tiger either. The cunning cat is known to mimic the sounds of the black bear to attract and hunt them.

Even hardy pack animals like wolves have been nearly wiped out by tigers. A stalking and ambushing predator, the Amur tiger, despite its great power, is only successful in ten to fifteen percent of hunting attempts. The cat prefers to crawl up to ten or twenty-five meters from the prey animal before running and pouncing on it, moving at speeds of up to 80 km / h on its load. Smaller prey animals are killed by a bite to the nape that breaks the vertebrae and cuts the spinal cord. A larger game is knocked down by a bite to the front of the neck that crushes the windpipe and suffocates the prey. Needing around twenty pounds of meat a day to survive in the wild, the tiger can consume around sixty to one hundred pounds in a single environment. The kill is often cached, usually near a body of water and the cat has been known to return to the carcasses to complete its feeding.

The Siberian tiger inhabits the boreal forests in the Far East of Asia, residing mainly in Russia, but also in China and North Korea. Panthera Tigris Altaica, is mainly seen in the Amur-Ussuri region of Primorsky and Khabarovsky Krai. His rank has been drastically reduced in the last hundred years and is now a mere fraction of his past dominance.

Tigers are known to mate at any time of the year. The receptive female announces her presence by leaving urine marks and scratches on the trees. It is usually in heat for three to seven days during which the pair mate several times. Like all big cats, courting individuals are less focused on hunting during this time and are particularly hostile to intruders. Up to six cubs are born after a pregnancy that lasts between three and three and a half months, although three to four is the average litter size. Blind and defenseless, they are protected in a den by the ever-vigilant mother who rarely leaves them for the first few weeks to just go out hunting.

Young open their eyes at two weeks and begin venturing outside at around three months. They are weaned around six months and begin to accompany their mother on her hunting trips at this age. Small prey are successfully captured by cubs at less than one year of age, and large prey at twice that age. They stay with their mother until they are three or five years old, after which they begin to venture out and establish their territories and fend for themselves. Males generally stray further from their kingdom, making them easier targets for poachers. As a result, adult male tigers are outnumbered by females three to one on average. The shelf life is known to be up to twenty-five years.

Amur tigers were freely hunted earlier this century, bringing them to the brink of extinction in most territories. In 1947, hunting was banned in the former Soviet Union. Still, the tiger continued to suffer at the hands of poachers who made huge profits selling the body parts to TCM manufacturers, earning up to $ 50,000 from a tiger. The collapse of the Soviet Union coupled with the collapse of the law and order infrastructure had a particularly adverse impact on the tiger population, which is why nearly sixty tigers are said to have been killed annually by poachers in the few years after. to 1989. In 1992, the Siberian Tiger Project was founded. This marked the beginning of a change in the tiger’s fate. In 1993, the Chinese government made it illegal to use tiger parts for medicinal purposes.

In the following years, careful surveillance and study resulted in the stabilization of the number of tigers in the wild. Regular patrols were conducted to deter poachers and individual tigers were studied to better understand the subspecies and reduce their mortality in the wild. Another successful step was the launch of Operation Amba in Russia which continues to protect the Siberian Tigers through the collaboration of law enforcement agencies and interaction with the local population. Your mission is to neutralize the tiger traders and attack and eliminate the poaching rings. He has been very successful in seizing many poaching materials and saving several tiger cubs. As a result of these tireless efforts by rangers and scientists, today the population of Siberian tigers in the wild is believed to be around five hundred individuals and this is simply the number in Russia. In fact, the Siberian tiger is the only tiger subspecies whose population is believed to be increasing. The impressive recovery of the Siberian tiger is often used as a model plan to save other species.