The permanent expedition of the Russian Academy of Sciences surveyed the southwest of the Primorye Territory, the Vyazemsky District, and the Khora River basin in the Khabarovsk Territory over a two month period (from mid-December 2011 until the end of February 2012). The analysis of the data obtained from the research will allow scientists to estimate the population of the Amur Tiger in the southwest of the Primorye Territory and will improve the methods for record keeping.

The Amur Tiger programme's expedition members in Russia's Far East, together with the game warden force, Inspection Tiger, completed the first stage of the tiger's population count for the 2011-2012 winter-spring seasons. The survey was conducted from 16 special sites located within the predators' habitat in the Primorye and Khabarovsk Territories. The Amur Tiger monitoring programme has been ongoing for the last 14 years.

The programme's second stage entailed the collection of tigers' biological samples in the southwest of the Primorye Territory. Almost 150 biological samples (excrement, hair, blood) were collected. Now the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the Russian Academy of Sciences will carry out detailed laboratory analysis of the collected specimens. These tests will be used to determine the genetic diversity of the group and the genetic isolation of the Amur tiger in southwestern Primorye Territory relative to the tigers in Sikhote Alin. The excrement will allow scientists to study the tigers' eating habits in the winter as well as its parasite fauna.