On 15 May 2021, exactly a year after the tigress was caught in the Olga District of the Primorye Territory, Sanda was released in the Arkhara District of the Amur Region, near the border of the Khingan Nature Reserve, where a tiger population restoration programme is underway.

“Sanda was saved largely thanks to local residents, who saw a young animal that was behaving rather unusually and reported this to the local hunting supervision inspectors and subsequently shared the information about the tigress’s whereabouts with them. This helped the experts to catch the animal rather quickly, which, as it turned out later, saved her life because she would have starved to death in a matter of days otherwise. Therefore, when the Gornovodnoye residents asked us to name the tigress in honour of Sandagou, the old name of the village, nobody had anything against it, because they had won this right with their caring attitude,” said Sergei Aramilev, general director of the Amur Tiger Centre. 

Sanda, who was seriously emaciated at the time of her rescue, has only survived and returned back to a normal life thanks to the right diet and treatment. When she got better, the rehabilitation centre’s experts taught her to hunt for hoofed animals and to correctly react to the presence of humans. As a result of their efforts, Sanda on numerous occasions demonstrated that she was ready to return into the wild.

Acting on the recommendations of a special commission at the Directorate for Wildlife Preservation and Protected Natural Areas of the Primorye Territory Forestry Ministry, Rospotrebnadzor approved an area in the south of the Amur Region for Sanda’s release.

“Sanda is far from the first tiger to be rehabilitated at the centre before their release into the wild. Releasing animals is both a joyful and a sad event. We are pleased to return yet another wild animal into the taiga, their natural habitat. However, we are also sad because we become attached to our animals while they are staying at the rehab centre and we watch them on the trail cameras. But we know that tigers must live in the taiga, which is the best place for them. We hope that Sanda will have a long and happy life,” said Viktor Kuzmenko, director of the Tiger Centre. 

On 15 May 2021, Sanda was immobilised for her final veterinary checkup, and a GPS tracking collar was put on her to help track her movements and to protect her safety during the next few years. After this, the tigress was placed in a special container for transportation to the Amur Region on a vehicle belonging to the hunting supervision department of the Primorye Territory.

When the vehicle reached the Arkhara District, the Amur Region’s hunting supervision inspectors transferred the container onto a lorry for the last part of her trip back home.

Sergei Aramilev noted that they released Sanda in the traditional manner, directly from the transportation container, without placing her into a temporary enclosure.

“The so called ‘soft’ method was not necessary for Sanda, unlike in the case of the couples Saikhan and Lazovka and Pavlik and Yelena. The vets said that Sanda was in peak condition, and the journey by road to the place of her release did not take long. This is why we decided to release her into the wild immediately. We have not disclosed the area where we let her go for safety reasons, but we can assure everyone that Sanda was freed a considerable distance from Yelena, who was set free in May 2019 and is currently living in the Khingan reserve. We hope that Sanda will live in the reserve alongside Yelena, like two good neighbours. Unlike male tigers, tigresses don’t quarrel over habitat and can live peacefully quite close to each other,” Sergei Aramilev pointed out.

The tiger conservation programme is being implemented in the Amur Region with support from the local government.

Russian specialists have amassed unique experience in rehabilitating troubled tigers and releasing them into the wild again. These animals are taken out of their natural habitat because of wounds, injuries, diseases or other factors that pose a threat to their life or could lead to conflicts such as forced straying into populated areas, attacks on agricultural animals and pets, and so on.

Since 2013, seven Amur tigers have been released into the wild following rehabilitation at the centre: Saikhan, Lazovka and Filippa were released in the Jewish Autonomous Region, Pavlik and Yelena in the Amur Region, and Vladik in Bikin National Park, Primorye Territory. One more tigress, who had been placed in the Centre for the Rehabilitation and Reintroduction of Tigers and Other Rare Animals in the village of Alekseyevka in December 2020, was released on 24 January 2021 in the vicinity of Call of the Tiger National Park, in one of the central regions of the Primorye Territory.