How the Siberian tiger was brought back from the brink of extinction
The forests of Russia’s Far East evoke a strange feeling, one that most Europeans have not been forced to consider for centuries. It is the sensation of being watched; of unseen menace lurking between the trees. Ultimately, it is the realisation that you are among predators, and being contemplated as either a rival or prey.
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They call this boreal wilderness the taiga in Russian, forests sprawling hundreds of miles from the North Korean border up towards the Arctic. They are home to a vast collection of flora and fauna and, above all, predators. An estimated 95 per cent of the world’s population of Amur (or Siberian) tigers live here.
Up to 10ft long, larger, heavier and stronger than their Asian cousins, they are the undisputed rulers of the forest; their orange, black and white pelts enable them to move like ghosts between the trees.
In recent years the tiger protectors have found themselves a powerful ally: the Russian president Vladimir Putin, who has come to regard the Amur tiger as a potent symbol of national pride. The Russian government has agreed to restrict logging in Amur tiger habitat and a presidential order in 2011 banned logging of Korean pine (although, over the past five years enough illegal wood from other species was logged to fill 400 miles of railways carriages).
At the same time, it has has also increased penalties for poaching and possession of tiger parts. Putin nowadays rarely wastes a photo opportunity with a tiger, and a few years ago state media reported he had personally immobilised one with a tranquilliser dart as it charged towards a nearby camera crew – although no footage of the deed exists.
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/02/siberian-tiger-brought-back-brink-extinction/
