Specialists managed to obtain the footage almost a year after Yelena’s tiger cubs were born, the Amur Tiger Centre reports.

“The first evidence of Yelena’s offspring appeared in December 2022. Two months later, we confirmed that there were two tiger cubs, a male and a female, who, judging by the size of their footprints, were born somewhere around June. After that, specialists began a cautious photo hunt for the family, ensuring minimal intrusion,” Vyacheslav Kastrikin, director of the Khingan Nature Reserve, said.

According to Kastrikin, during the year, the tigress had been potted several times by the staff of the Border Department; they were even able to film her from a quadcopter, but each time she was alone, and surveillance devices failed to capture her with her cubs.

The first images of the tiger cubs were obtained only at the end of summer, when a resident of the Arkharinsky District, Amur Region, took several pictures with a  phone on a country road at dusk. And at the end of October, the entire tiger family was captured by a camera trap installed on a field road between the villages of Mikhailovka and Zhuravlyovka, Arkharinsky District.

“The memory card recorded Yelena passing by, followed by both of her cubs just a few seconds later. The tigers moved past the camera trap first in one direction, and after a short period of time, they went back. This being Yelena's first litter, last winter was challenging. However, but we can see that both the tigress and her cubs are in good physical condition: they are only slightly smaller than their mother in size. If our estimations are correct, the tiger cubs are almost eighteen months old and it won’t be long before they start venturing out on their own, leaving their mother to live independently. This underscores the importance of complementing camera traps with traditional methods like recording tiger footprints in the snow and utilising tracking techniques. After all, if we had relied on camera traps alone, we would only have learned about motherhood now, and not a year ago,” said Sergei Aramilev, general director of the Amur Tiger Centre.

After completing a rehabilitation course alongside her brother Pavlik, Yelena was returned to the wild. The female immediately settled in the Khingan Nature Reserve, seldom venturing beyond its borders.