The winter monitoring has provided new data about the Amur tiger population in the Zhuravliny Nature Sanctuary in the Jewish Autonomous Region in the Russian Far East. The reserve’s staff now have an impressive collection of Amur tiger photographs taken by trail cameras.

The predators were photographed in different seasons in the same spots. Over the past three years, experts have pinpointed the most frequented spots and installed trail cameras there.

One such spot is an area where scent marking trees grow to which the tigers return to renew the scent. The reason why they chose these trees is unclear, but most likely animals use scent marking trees to learn about their neighbours’ species, age and health condition.

The Amur tiger population in the Jewish Autonomous Region is monitored by experts from the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the Russian Academy of Sciences, the PRNCO “Tiger Centre,” the Jewish Autonomous Region Department of Hunting Supervision, the Bastak and Khingan nature reserves, and the Zhuravliny Nature Sanctuary. The project was supported by the Phoenix Fund, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and the Russian Geographical Society.