The first images of Amur tigers at the Sikhote-Alin Nature Reserve have been recorded by camera traps purchased with the help of the Beautiful Children in a Beautiful World Foundation.

In April 2014, the management of the Sikhote-Alin Nature Reserve received funding from the charitable foundation to carry out the Striped Neighbour project, which aims to study and protect the Amur tiger population, a national symbol of Russia.

The camera traps have been installed in the areas most frequented by Amur tigers, including main paths and marked trees. Each tiger has a unique stripe pattern, allowing researchers to identify the tigers photographed by camera traps and to count all the tigers roaming the reserve.

The first check of the camera traps revealed that one particular location is especially popular with the predators, resulting in images of four different tigers and a brown bear. The tigers are well known to researchers and have already been named: Varvara, Murzik, Mira and the male Dzhigit. The latter was first sighted in the reserve in 2011. The images suggest that Varvara has already parted ways with her offspring, after teaching them how to survive in the wilderness, and is now ready to mate again. Experts at the nature reserve hope to spot her offspring soon, and they also expect her to give birth to a new litter in the near future.

The Bushnell digital camera traps are absolutely silent and feature an invisible infrared flash, so they don’t disturb the animals in any way.

Experts hope that these unobtrusive and well-camouflaged devices will provide many interesting images and video clips of tigers and other animals, and lead to new insights into the lives of the taiga dwellers.