The tracks of a big adult male tiger were found in the Khingan Nature Reserve in the Amur Region. According to Vyacheslav Kastrikin, deputy director for research at the reserve, the tiger may be a potential mate for five-year-old Ilona, the tigress released into the wild by President of Russia Vladimir Putin in 2014.

“A big adult male walked a couple dozen kilometres from the spot where Ilona was. By tiger standards, it is close. We went to the spot to collect biological material,” Kastrikin noted, adding that this could be Kuzya, another tiger released by the President.

Kuzya’s tracking collar stopped working and his location is now unknown.

According to the deputy director, the genetic code from the collected biological material will be checked in Moscow at the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution. The results of the research will be announced in January.