According to latest monitoring results, the tigers Pavlik and Yelena still live in the Amur Region where they were released into the wild in the spring of 2019.

A group of employees of the Khingan Nature Reserve and the local hunting supervision service are tracking the life of the tigress that settled near the Khingan Ridge in the reserve, with the support of the Amur Tiger Centre. Based on the data on Yelena’s movements received from her seamlessly functioning GPS collar, specialists can verify the location of her lengthy stays (clusters) in the area.

Vyacheslav Kastrikin, Deputy Director of the Khingan Nature Reserve for Research, said that the remains of a small bear, Yelena’s first prey, were found during the inspection of one of the predator’s clusters.

“Now Yelena is not far from the northern border of the reserve, on one of her regular routes. Judging by the coordinates received from the Amur Tiger Centre, Yelena entered the territory where wild male tigers from the Jewish Autonomous Region roam every year,” Kastrikin said.

Pavlik continues exploring the remote areas of the Amur Region, which has prevented specialists from the hunting supervision service, who are in charge of his field monitoring, from studying his diet. Thanks to his GPS collar, specialists know for sure that the tiger is alive and healthy, and can spot his location, but this is all they can do.

“Pavlik’s activity confirms that adult tigers from the same litter, even brothers and sisters, do not stay in the same area. As usual, we don’t show the tigers’ current location on the map; however, we know that Pavlik turned around again and went west where he finally crossed the Zeya River, which he had not been able to do before. Notably, he swam across the river near the town of Svobodny, but this does not mean that he entered the populated area and poses a threat to the locals. He walked in the forest several dozen kilometres away from the town and, most likely, did not even realise it was there,” said Sergei Aramilev, Director General of the Amur Tiger Centre.