A five-months-old Amur tiger cub found in the Khasansky District of the Primorye Territory continues settling in his new spacious enclosure at the Centre for the Rehabilitation and Reintroduction of Tigers and Other Rare Animals in the Alekseyevka village. Experts have established that the cub is a female.

The animal is living in an open-air enclosure covering an area of 0.4 hectares. She is now exploring the territory and trying to hunt rabbits.

“The young tigress has found herself in a situation when she was virtually deprived of her childhood. At this age, she should be playing and enjoying life, relying on her mother to provide for all her needs. Instead, she continues to think she has to take care of herself because she doesn’t realise that people are looking after her now. So she is often stressed and on her guard in the enclosure,” said Yekaterina Blidchenko, senior researcher at Land of the Leopard Nature Reserve and zoologist at the Amur Tiger Centre.

Experts expect to release the little tigress into the wild once she has recovered her strength and matured but the complete process could take up to 18 months.