Vyacheslav Rozhnov, Deputy Director of the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, head of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ permanent expedition for the study of animals listed in the Russian Red Data Book of endangered species and other important animals, and head of the Amur Tiger Programme, speaks about the Rehabilitation and Reintroduction Centre for tigers and other animals operating in the Primorye Territory.

Mr Rozhnov, can you tell us about the rehabilitation of tiger cubs at the centre?

The cubs are undergoing a special programme at the Rehabilitation and Reintroduction Centre for tigers and other rare animals, which the Tiger Special Inspection and the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution built near the village of Alekseyevka in the Primorye Territory with financial assistance from the Russian Geographical Society. The process includes developing the cubs’ ability to track prey, including wild boar and deer, and to avoid humans. The cubs that we find in the forest fear humans, and one of our priority tasks is to preserve this instinct. The cubs have no contact with humans at the centre, and we only watch them via video monitors. Food is placed so that the cubs will not see the process: the centre’s cages are interconnected and the prey is placed in a vacant cage while the cubs are in another cage.

We have gained considerable rehabilitation experience. Zolushka (Cinderella) is not the first orphan tiger to undergo rehabilitation at the centre. We rehabilitated four other tiger cubs before her, a tiger named Oleg in 2009-2010 and three other tiger cubs (Lazurina, Tatyana and Volodya) after him. There are now another three orphan tiger cubs at the centre. We rehabilitated the first four cubs with wonderful zoologist and tiger specialist Viktor Yudin in his Zoological Centre in the village of Gaivoron in the Primorye Territory. However, the rehabilitation conditions at his centre are limited, which is why we joined forces with the Tiger Special Inspection to build the Rehabilitation and Reintroduction Centre for tigers and other rare animals in Alekseyevka.

How many people work at the rehabilitation centre?

One employee from the Tiger Special Inspection is responsible for supplying food and for other organisational issues, while two members of the permanent expedition for the study of animals in the Red Book of endangered species and other important animals are in charge of video monitoring, feeding strategies, veterinary issues and the research necessary for developing a methodology of tiger cub rehabilitation and reintroduction.

How do you release the cubs into the wild?

One of the most important issues is the choice of the reintroduction site. Unfortunately, there is an insufficient number of the Amur tiger in its historical habitat. In some places the tigers have been replaced by wolves, which are doing considerable damage to the hunting farms because they have a different method of hunting prey. Wolves kill indiscriminately, while tigers never hunt until they have eaten their previous prey.

Before reintroducing the cubs, we must study the habitat to choose places where we can restore a group of these cats, where we can release the rehabilitated cubs. One place is the Bastak Nature Reserve in the Jewish Autonomous Region where Zolushka was released, because the tiger population was exterminated there. We carefully studied this site before releasing Zolushka. It turned out that there was a mate-less male tiger there, so we decided that releasing a female tiger would help restore the local tiger population.

Where will you release the three cubs currently at the centre?

We released the first rehabilitated cubs in September, which is a time when there are many hoofed animals around, and the cubs have become strong enough and have learned to hunt their prey. Besides, the conditions at Yudin’s centre are not very well suited for rehabilitation because the centre is located almost in the village and there are too many people in the area.

We can keep the cubs at the new centre in Alekseyevka until the spring and release them in April or May when the hoofed animals breed and the tigers will be able to hunt easy prey. This is what we did in the case of Zolushka, who was released on May 9.

Do you coordinate the release of the animals with anyone?

Yes, we only release the tigers with the permission of the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources (Rosprirodnadzor) and the regional authorities. We coordinated the release of Zolushka with the government of the Jewish Autonomous Region, the management of the Bastak Nature Reserve and Rosprirodnadzor. We believe that several more tigers can be released in the Bastak reserve. We are now working to finalise a special programme which will become effective if approved by Rosprirodnadzor.

The Amur Region also plans to restore its tiger population. There are two good sites for this, the Khingan reserve and the Arkhara sanctuary. We need to study them thoroughly, including their food potential, in order to understand if it is sufficient for releasing tigers or if we need to take biotechnical measures to increase the food potential.

There are several other sites in the Far East where we not only can, but should, restore Amur tiger populations in order to fully restore its previous habitat.