A young orphaned tigress brought from the wild to a sanctuary in the Russian Far East has proved she can hunt independently. Researchers monitoring the animal in the Bastak reserve say her first catch was a badger large enough to feed on for three days.

Fellows from the Russian Academy of Sciences' Severtsov Institute for Ecology and Evolution are monitoring the cub, called Cinderella, with a help of a satellite collar, which enables them to follow her every step of the way. At some point, they noticed that for three consecutive days, signals from the collar were coming from the same place. A field team consisting of representatives of the Tiger special inspectorate, the Bastak sanctuary and the World Wildlife Fund travelled to the location where they discovered the remains of a large badger. This led them to conclude that Cinderella had honed her hunting skills enough to fend for herself in the wild.

Cinderella was brought to the Bastak sanctuary following a rehabilitation course in a tiger rehabilitation centre near the village of Alekseyevka, in Russia's Primorye Territory. The centre was built as part of the Programme to Study the Amur Tiger in the Russian Far East. Experts of the Tiger special inspectorate and the Severtsov Institute developed the rehabilitation course to allow orphaned tigers found in the taiga to return to the wild.

Now it is clear that Cinderella learned to hunt for herself during the course and that she is ready to return to the wild.

After she finished off the badger, Cinderella continued to wander through the taiga, with the satellite collar tracking her movements.