Conservationists have restored tiger populations in a region of Russia — and, in doing so, may have set the standard for how tigers and other threatened and endangered big cats could be reintroduced to other parts of Asia.
The conservationists, led by the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Geographical Society with assistance from the Wildlife Conservation Society, spent nearly a decade between 2012 and 2021 rehabilitating and releasing orphaned cubs in the Pri-Amur region of Russia, where tigers had been virtually extinct for more than 50 years.
Their findings were published in a study in The Journal of Wildlife Management.
"This study represents a tantalizing new development in expanding the 'toolbox' for conservationists to return tigers to those parts of Asia where they have been lost," said Luke Hunter, executive director of the WCS Big Cats Program, in a release. "The team was scrupulous in preparing young cubs for life in the wild, especially in ensuring they did not habituate to humans. Their careful approach succeeded and paves the way for more reintroduction attempts—not only of tigers, but of other big cats as well."
The groups rehabilitated the orphaned cubs until they were at least 18 months old and then released them into the wild, using tracking technology to keep a close eye on them and make sure that they were able to fend for themselves without killing too much livestock.
The results were incredibly heartening, as the tigers reportedly did just as well as those born in the wild.
"Basically the data demonstrated that orphaned cubs, raised in captivity and released, were just as good as wild tigers at hunting, targeting the same types of wild prey, and very rarely killing livestock," said Dale Miquelle, lead author of the study. "This success demonstrates that tigers, with proper isolation from humans and provided the opportunity to learn to hunt, can be successfully re-released into the wild."
Other recent examples of successfully reintroduced species include wolves in the American West, the world's smallest pig species in India, and Siamese crocodiles in Cambodia.
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