A male tiger traveled hundreds of kilometers to meet the female tiger he grew up with and welcomed their first litter of cubs together.
Boris and Svetlaya were successfully returned to the wild. Image: ANO WCS
After being released in different places in the Pri-Amur region, a Siberian tiger named Boris traveled more than 200 km to reunite with Svetlaya, the tigress he grew up with in semi-captivity. Within half a year, the tiger pair welcomed their first litter of cubs together, according to IFL Science. They are part of a program to successfully reintroduce Siberian tigers to Pri-Amur, a region near the Russia-China border, where tiger populations have been almost completely absent for more than 50 years.
A new study based on the stories of six young tigers, including Boris and Svetlaya, was published in the journal Wildlife Management. They are orphaned tigers in the forest in the Sikhote-Alin Mountains, nicknamed “the last tiger habitat” in Russia. The tiger cubs are raised in specially designed cages to minimize contact with humans. When they reach the appropriate age, they are exposed to live prey to develop hunting skills. The project’s goal is to see whether captive tigers can kill prey at a level sufficient for their survival in the wild.
Once the team was sure the tigers had become proficient hunters, they fitted them with GPS collars and released them into the wild. They are distributed throughout the region to expand their living range as much as possible. However, researchers did not expect Boris to make the 200 km journey to meet Svetlaya again.
This project was a huge success. Released tigers can successfully hunt wild animals in their natural environment, allowing them to survive and even reproduce. Data proves that orphaned tigers raised in captivity and released into the wild are just as good hunters as wild tigers, target the same types of prey and rarely kill livestock, according to research team leader Dale Miquelle. at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), said. The success of the project shows that tigers kept completely separate from humans and provided with the opportunity to learn how to hunt, can be released back into the wild. But the process requires care and attention to detail to prepare for them.
The WCS estimates that there are fewer than 4,500 tigers dispersed across 63 areas, and they currently exist in only 8% of their historic range. Although much of their original environment has been destroyed by human development, there are still more than 700,000 km of habitat in Asia suitable for tigers.