Category: Russian Far East
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced today a major breakthrough in the science of saving tigers: high-tech DNA fecal sampling.
NEW YORK (JUNE 18, 2009) -- The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced today a major breakthrough in the science of saving tigers: high-tech DNA fecal sampling.
DNA from an extinct sub-species of tiger has revealed that the ancestors of modern tigers migrated through the heart of China – along what would later become known as "the Silk Road."
Veterinarians have confirmed the first-known case of canine distemper in a wild Siberian tiger in the Russian Far East, further threatening populations of this highly endangered big cat. Kathy Quigley, veterinarian for the WCS Siberian Tiger Project, confirmed that an adult female tigress that wandered into a Russian town exhibiting abnormal behavior had the disease, which is fatal in cats. It is suspected that the tiger caught the disease from an infected domestic dog. Despite heroic efforts to save her, the tiger died.
Scientists from the U.S. and Russia have fitted three wild Siberian tiger cubs under six months old with tiny radio-collars, marking the youngest wild tigers to be tracked by scientists. The collars -- made with an elastic designed to expand and eventually break and fall off of the growing cubs -- weigh just over five ounces and would fit well on a large house cat. These devices will give researchers crucial insights into the lives of tiger cubs in the Russian Far East and ways of improving the survival and reproduction of the largest of the cat species.
A remote camera clicked the first known photograph of a wild Siberian or Amur tiger in northern China last week, providing strong evidence that tigers are crossing from the Russian Far East to repopulate previous tiger strongholds. The tiger was photographed in Jilin Province's Hunchun Nature Reserve. Staff members at the reserve set up the camera-trap after a local farmer reported that a predator killed a mule. The next day, they retrieved the film and discovered the image of an adult tiger feeding on the carcass.
An immense grassland in Mongolia ? an area likened to the long-gone prairies of the American West, complete with staggering migrations of hundreds of thousands of animals ? is threatened by a proposal to build a road through its center, according to scientists with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society. The road proposal is part of the "Millennium Highway," which plans to connect Mongolia to China and the Russian Far East.
