In February, the Amur Tiger Centre, the Tiger Centre and the hunting oversight service conducted another field expedition to the habitat of reintroduced Amur tigers in the Jewish Autonomous Region. They brought back photos of Filippa the tigress, who had been out of sight for a while because her GPS collar stopped working and trail cameras could not capture images of her.

The images from the trail cameras installed in Filippa’s home range confirmed that she is alive and in great shape.

“We are delighted to see that our assumptions regarding the borders of Filippa’s range turned out to be correct and the trail cameras installed back in 2018 worked without failure. The tiger picked a part of the woods where humans rarely go,” said Sergei Aramilev, general director of the Amur Tiger Centre.

Aramilev noted that the tigress is ready to start a family and will most likely choose between Saikhan and Boris. Their home grounds also overlap with a female tiger from Lazo.

“Based on regular signals from her collar, the tigress from Lazo inhabits an area close to these other three. But even if it happens, nobody will be offended. It is common in the tiger world,” the scientist explained.

During the expedition, the members also checked Saikhan’s new location and found that he had been hunting on Boris’s turf.

“Saikhan has not settled on any specific area for hunting – perhaps because of his older neighbour Boris. Scientists noticed that the two tigers’ paw prints cross. Living close to each other does not prevent Saikhan from eating plenty. Even despite the fact that at least one time he hunted in the same area as Boris,” said Viktor Kuzmenko, director of the Tiger Centre.

He added that Saikhan is now moving towards Filippa’s area.