The Amur tigers released in the Jewish Autonomous Region after undergoing rehabilitation in the Primorye Territory continue to live successfully in the wild.

During a field examination of clusters of reintroduced animals in September, experts collected data from camera traps installed in the areas where Filippa the tigress and the tigress from Lazo live. Judging by the photos, the tigers are in great shape and successfully hunt prey. The expedition was conducted by specialists from the Tiger Centre and the hunting supervision service of the Jewish Autonomous Region with the support of the Amur Tiger Centre.

According to Viktor Kuzmenko, head of the Tiger Centre, the monitoring group checked the grounds of Filippa the tigress in the Pompeyevka River basin and the tigress from Lazo in the Zhuravliny Nature Sanctuary, as well as camera traps installed there.

“In the Zhuravliny Nature Sanctuary, a very low number of ungulates has been recorded, perhaps due to the flood. Accordingly, there were almost no tigers there: the ungulates left for other areas, and the tigers followed them. When checking the Pompeyevka River basin, Filippa’s home range, we found out that many of our tigers were concentrated there, near the Pompeyevsky Ridge, such as Boris, his cub and the tigress from Lazo. Unfortunately, neither Filippa nor Svetlaya were spotted by camera traps, but this is normal, if we assume that they are raising cubs now, and two males appeared at once on their joint grounds – Boris and his already quite adult cub. Because of this, they could have moved, gone to another area, in order to prevent clashes between cubs and male tigers,” said Viktor Kuzmenko.

The photos from the camera traps show that, despite the fact that the flood forced the tigers to relocate, they have no nutrition problems, as the predators look healthy and well-fed.

According to the experts, there is a group of 13 to 15 tigers in the Jewish Autonomous Region. The number of tigers in the region has steadily increased owing to the periodic releases of reintroduced animals there. In different years, three Amur tigers – Filippa, the tigress from Lazo and Saikhan – were released in the region with the support of the Amur Tiger Centre.

In addition, Boris, who President Vladimir Putin helped release in 2014 in the Amur Region, joined the group in the Jewish Autonomous Region.