In cooperation with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the Amur Tiger Centre has released a training film “The ABCs of Tracking” to help researchers count Amur tigers in the Russian Far East. Active preparations for the simultaneous counting of this endangered wild cat are underway in the region. The purpose of the film is to ensure that counters are able to correctly measure and record tiger tracks.

According to the director of the centre’s Primorye branch, Sergei Aramilev, the main requirement when deploying a large number of researchers is following uniform standards.  

“The coordinators only selected good trackers who acquired these skills owing to their occupation or hunting,” he said. “Counting tigers across their entire habitat is a rare undertaking. Therefore, all participants should be taught to measure tiger tracks in the same way and to correctly record this information in specially provided diaries. Only in this case will we receive data that can be compared. A coordinator cannot remind the counters every day what information needs to be recorded and where. So this film will be helpful to counters,” he said.

The film is primarily designed for specialists in the Amur Region and Jewish Autonomous Region where an extensive count of Amur tigers will be held for the first time, in comparison with more researched areas like the Primorye and Khabarovsk territories. The organisers are ready to translate the film into Chinese to help their colleagues with field preparations.