- Camera trap, set up by the Wildlife Conservation Society, captured footage of rare Amur tigress trailed by her three cubs.
- This video provides a glimmer of hope for these endangered big cats.
- WCS is also working with logging companies in the region to block logging roads around the reserve to protect the tiger populations.
In a rare moment, a camera trap videoed a rare Amur tigress, trailed by her three cubs. The camera belongs to a network of camera traps set up by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Russia’s Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve to study Amur tigers.
In the video, “the cats are using an overgrown forest road as a travel corridor; the same type of road patrolled by poachers with spotlights,” according to a statement released by WCS.
Fewer than 400 adult and sub-adult Amur tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) remain in the wild, over 90 percent of which occur in Sikhote Alin region. The Sikhote Alin Biosphere Reserve, where the video was captured, covers around 400,000 hectares (~1,000,000 acres), and is the largest protected area within the Amur tiger’s range, according to WCS. The video, which shows a mother with her cubs, provides a glimmer of hope for these endangered big cats, WCS noted in the statement.
To protect tiger populations in the region, WCS is also working with logging companies there to stop usage of logging roads in and around the reserve.
In March this year, another camera trap set up by WCS caught an unusual series of photos of an Amur tiger father followed by the mother and three cubs.