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201513Dec10:54

Rewil­ded Amur tigress in Russ­ian Far East has cubs!

Infor­ma­tion
pub­lished 13 Decem­ber 2015 | mod­i­fied 13 Decem­ber 2015
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Amur tigress Zolushka and her cubsWildlife Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety (WCS) and part­ners report from Bas­tak Reserve, a 420 square kilo­me­tre pro­tected area in the Pri-​Amur region of the Russ­ian Far East, a tiger cub who lost her mother and nearly died, has became a “Cin­derella” and is now a mother.

The reserve was devoid of tigers for nearly 40 years until Zolushka (Russ­ian for Cin­derella) was released there two years ago and has now attracted a mate from another region.

Anx­ious wait­ing by biol­o­gists in the area was rewarded on 9 Decem­ber 2015, when Ivan Pod­kol­nokov, the reserve inspec­tor respon­si­ble for mon­i­tor­ing Zolushka returned from the field with his­toric pho­tos: Zolushka stand­ing under a huge Korean pine tree, with two small cubs hud­dled under­neath her.

This demon­strates that there is still suit­able habi­tat for tigers in the Pri-​Amur region of the Russ­ian Far East, and there is a place for tigers here.
Alek­sandr Yurye­vich Kalinin, Direc­tor of the pro­tected area »

This is a great day for Bas­tak Reserve” said Alek­sandr Yurye­vich Kalinin. “Our thanks go out to the Sev­ertsov Insti­tute of Ecol­ogy and Evo­lu­tion (Russ­ian Acad­emy of Sci­ences), WCS, IFAW, the Phoenix Fund, and Spe­cial Inspec­tion Tiger and work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tively with us to make this happen.”

Said WCS Rus­sia Direc­tor Dale Miquelle: “This is a water­shed event not just for Zolushka, but for the entire pop­u­la­tion of Amur tigers. These births mark the return of tigers to habi­tat that had been lost, and the begin­nings of a recov­ery and expan­sion of the last remain­ing Amur tiger pop­u­la­tion into habi­tat lost years ago.”

Said Cristián Sam­per, WCS Pres­i­dent and CEO. “The story of this Cin­derella is no fairy tale. The dis­cov­ery of Zolushka’s cubs is real proof that con­ser­va­tion on the ground, con­ducted by groups work­ing in part­ner­ship, can and does work. Zolushka and her cubs are proof that tiger habi­tat lost long ago is com­ing back in the Russ­ian Far East.”

Cam­era trap footage from Bas­tak Nature Reserve shows Zolushka and her two cubs a few days ago on 7 Decem­ber:


(Source: Anton Semy­onov YouTube channel)

In Feb­ru­ary 2012, hunters in the south­west­ern por­tion of Pri­morskii Krai, one of the last strong­holds of the Amur (or Siber­ian) tiger, came across a starv­ing, four-​month old tiger cub. Brought to the local wildlife man­ager, she was nursed back to health. After an oper­a­tion to remove the tip of her tail which was dam­aged due to severe frost­bite, Zolushka was trans­ferred to the Alek­sayevka Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre, man­aged by Inspec­tion Tiger and sup­ported by the Russ­ian Geo­graph­i­cal Society.

Kept away from humans (so as not to become accus­tomed to them) and pro­vided live prey, Zolushka slowly learned how to hunt. In May 2013, when approx­i­mately 20 months old (the nor­mal age when young tigers dis­perse from their moth­ers), Zolushka was taken to Bas­tak Reserve and released. On her own, Zolushka quickly fig­ured out how to exploit the abun­dance of bad­gers, wild boar, and red deer.

Tiger protectedareas Russia releasesitesTiger release sites in pro­tected areas of The Russ­ian Far East; Image credit: Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion Society

WCS assisted sci­en­tists from the Sev­ertsov Insti­tute with Zolusha’s trans­fer and release into Bas­tak — some 700 km away. WCS staff spent con­sid­er­able time track­ing Zolushka as she explored her new home to ensure she was prop­erly accli­mat­ing to life back in the wild.

How­ever, there was one prob­lem. Tigers dis­ap­peared from the forests of Bas­tak Reserve forty years ago, mak­ing Zolushka a lonely Cin­derella. That prob­lem was mirac­u­lously solved when a lone wild male arrived, appar­ently mak­ing the 200 km hike west from the northern-​most por­tions of cur­rent tiger range in Rus­sia. Tracks of Zolushka and her prince were soon found together, but there was still a long wait as Zolushka still needed to mature and became ready for moth­er­hood. But now a mile­stone has been reached, Zolushka has become a mother!

WCS’s work in reha­bil­i­tat­ing, releas­ing, and mon­i­tor­ing Zolushka was made pos­si­ble through part­ner­ships with the Liz Clai­borne and Art Orten­berg Foun­da­tion, Colum­bus Zoo and Aquar­ium, Inter­na­tional Fund for Ani­mal Wel­fare (IFAW), and the AZA Tiger Species Sur­vival Plan Tiger Con­ser­va­tion Cam­paign. Col­lab­o­ra­tors for this project included the A. N. Sev­ertsov Insti­tute of Ecol­ogy and Evo­lu­tion from the Russ­ian Acad­emy of Sci­ences, the Russ­ian Geo­graph­i­cal Soci­ety, Inspec­tion Tiger, IFAW, and Phoenix Fund.


(Source: WCS news release, 10.12.2015)


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Tiger map” (CC BY 2.5) by Sander­son et al., 2006.

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