Experts have found the first traces in two years of two Amur tigers at Komsomolsky Nature Reserve, which is located in the Khabarovsk Territory in Russia’s Far East.

They believe that the tigers’ habitat is extending to the northwest in the Khabarovsk Territory to become their primordial living environment.

A male tiger was traced moving from the left bank of the Amur River into the reserve, where his tracks crossed those of a young female tiger.

Tigers are naturally spreading out to the northwest in the Khabarovsk Territory, with a diverse range of movements observed in the Jewish Autonomous Region and the Amur Region, said Dmitry Belanovich, director of the environmental policy and regulation department at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. He said the ministry’s programme for the preservation of the Amur tiger, including their reintroduction into the wild, had produced the first positive results: both the animals’ habitat and population have grown.

In February 2015, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment will cooperate with research and public organisations to register all Amur tigers in Russia.

The programme will study the tigers’ geographic distribution and population characteristics including age and gender, as well as how their temporal and spatial distribution relates to gender, age and environmental factors.