The Lazovsky Nature Reserve and Call of the Tiger National Park are preparing for the annual count of Amur tigers living in these protected areas.

The expedition is planned for  this January. The count will be based on animals’ paw prints in the snow. The teams are currently plotting expedition routes, preparing equipment (skis and snowmobiles) and delivering firewood to ranger stations.

In order to count the current population of the rare wild cats, inspectors and researchers will follow the routes with GPS navigators and measure any discovered tiger paw prints. The size of a paw print is used to determine gender and age of the animal. All the data are logged in the monitoring journal. The specialists will also use data from camera traps.

Recently, the staff discovered paw prints of a female tiger with four cubs near the Petrov Bay. A large litter of four cubs is quite rare, according to Linda Kerley, a zoologist at the Lazovsky Nature Reserve. A large male’s paw prints were also found a little further away from the bay.

Winter monitoring at the nature reserve is held twice a year, in December and January and in February. The previous count showed that the protected areas are home to 14−18 Amur tigers, the largest number in the Far East.

Interview with Vladimir Aramilev, director of the Lazovsky Nature Reserve and Call of the Tiger National Park, with RIA Novosti on 5 December 2016.