2022 - Year of Tiger
What are WWF-Russia’s actions under the Amur tiger conservation program?
- Create protected areas to preserve tiger habitats;
- Equip and support anti-poaching and fire-fighting brigades;
- Restore ungulate numbers in tiger habitats.
CA|TS standards
Protected Areas (PAs) are a mainstay of tiger conservation. However, simply designating a tiger area as ‘protected’ is not enough. It is important that these protected areas effectively perform the functions for which they were created. There are a number of tools to assess the role of a protected area and to understand how to improve its work. CA|TS (Conservation Assured | Tiger Standards) is one of them.
It was developed by international conservation organizations - the Global Tiger Forum (GTF), WWF’s Tiger Alive Initiative, IUCN and the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) to implement the Tiger Recovery Program, which was announced in 2010 at the Tiger Forum in St. Petersburg and set a global goal to double wild tiger numbers by the year 2022.
CA|TS Tiger Habitat Certification is a one-stop tool for monitoring, demonstrating and ensuring the efficiency of tiger area management. It includes 17 standards that will help manage tiger territories and evaluate the effectiveness of this management.
To implement certification, CA|TS is in dialogue with all tiger range countries in Southeast Asia. Russia, with 13% of the world's total tiger population, is regarded as the second largest tiger habitat, and its participation is of great importance in promoting tiger certification.
In 2015, the Sikhote-Alin Nature Reserve became the first in Russia and the second in the world (after the Chitwan National Park in Nepal) CA|TS approved protected area.
The list of candidates for obtaining CA|TS certificate includes 5 more protected areas from Russia: Anyuisky, Land of the Leopard, Bikin, Zov tigra national parks and Lazovsky Nature Reserve.
According to WWF-Russia, many tiger PAs in our country have a high chance of successfully passing certification, which allows to demonstrate to the world community, within the framework of the Tiger Summit 2022, how effective tiger conservation has been performed in Russia.
AMUR TIGER: Facts and Details

Amur tiger habitat in Russia
~750
tigers in the
Russian Far East
20%
of habitat
already in PAs




The number of Amur tigers
in the Far East of Russia

tiger hunting ban since 1947

ban on catching tiger cubs since 1956
The main diet of the Amur tiger


~50
ungulates per year

Boar



Sika deer



Manchurian
wapiti



Roe deer


Threats
wildfires


logging


poaching


feed scarcity






Young ones
usually 1-2 cubs, rarely 3

Body length

220 cm

180 cm

Body weight

180 kg

120 kg

Habitat size

1500 km2

400 km2
What threatens Amur tigers?



Poaching
The most significant factor threatening the existence of the Amur tiger in Russia is its direct destruction. Studies show that 72-83% of tiger deaths occur due to human fault, mainly as a result of poaching. Natural death is only 17-28%.
In addition to hunt the Amur tiger to sale its derivatives on black market, there are other motives for its illegal shooting: to get rid of the tiger as a competitor in hunting grounds, when the tiger attacks domestic animals and livestock, at random meetings, when a person perceives the tiger as a source of danger.
Industrial development of tiger habitats
Most of the river valleys and lowland lands, where the populations of ungulates and the Amur tiger reached their maximum number before their intensive human development, now occupied by villages and agricultural land.
As a result, the Amur tiger was displaced into lower quality habitats, with less fodder productivity, which made its population more susceptible to the negative impact of anthropogenic factors, including the clear-cut felling, unsustainable hunting management that undermine the tiger's food base.
Illegal logging and wildfires
Currently, the effect of habitat destruction is amplified by the continued harvesting of Korean cedar, logging of Mongolian oak and other tree species of the essential floodplain forests. As a result, the area of habitats suitable for the Amur tiger is reduced, and the quality of ungulate habitats, its main diet, is also reduced, which ultimately leads to a decrease of the ecological capacity of habitats.
The fire hazard of forests increased as a result of violation of fire safety measures during felling, timber and trimmings are not removed after logging, also as a result of forest roads construction, public access to the forest is facilitated, which in the vast majority of cases is the cause of wildfires, and even more so the organization of forest fire safety by commercial logging companies has been reduced.
Spread of infectious diseases
A number of infectious diseases can lead to the death of both adult tigers and young cubs, as well as a decrease in the fertility of sexually mature individuals. The tiger can receive a significant part of infectious diseases both when contacting relatives and when eating prey, primarily carnivores (badger, raccoon dog, bear, lynx). Contact with domestic animals and livestock, which can carry a number of diseases dangerous to the tiger, can also pose a threat to the Amur tiger.

HELP THE TIGERS
Tiger News

Our partner artist Matthew Twombly create this story in the form of a comics.
Uporny's Story
Man and tiger
Human interactions with tigers, likewise with all large predators, have always been a challenging issue. On one hand, due to human activities, by the early 1990s the Amur tigers have faced extinction. On the other hand, again thanks to humans, over the past years the population of the Amur tiger has grown and continues to grow. The increase in tiger numbers have caused a new set of challenges such as more space and food, but people interfere again: irrational deforestation is still continuing within the big cat habitat, forest fires increasingly occur due to humans’ fault, poaching and unsustainable wildlife management remains a major cause for concern.
POACHING
Poaching has become the greatest threat to tigers. Until 1947, people hunted tigers freely, in 1978 the Amur tiger was listed in the Red Book. The poaching has drastically increased since the collapse of the Soviet Union. People’s living standards and income declined, the system of environment protection and nature resources management formed during the years of socialism was practically destroyed, which led to a sharp increase in cases of poaching. This trend was strengthened by smugglers trading tiger skins and derivatives, which was facilitated by the liberalization of Russia's relations with neighboring countries.
Moreover, with regard to tiger, any type of poaching has a serious impact, including poaching on ungulates, because the tiger crowns the top of the food pyramid, and poachers destroy, among other things, the tiger's prey base.
Anti-poaching work is one of the most important tasks in tiger conservation.
THE DESTRUCTION AND FRAGMENTATION OF TIGER HABITAT
The Ussuri taiga is a haven for the Amur tiger. It is here, in the heart of intact forest, the predator does feel truly at home. Forest fires, which often occur both due to natural phenomena, but also to humans’ fault, and persistent logging destroy a fragile ecosystem which all its inhabitants including tigers need.
The conservation of forests and the enlargement of protected areas covered by intact forests is the keystone to the well-being of the entire ecosystem and to the maintenance of favorable conditions for the life of the Amur tiger and, after all, to the prevention of human-tiger conflicts.
HUMAN-TIGER CONFLICTS
Tigers do not seek contact with humans under normal circumstances. The typical behavior of a tiger at the sight of people is to go deep into the forest, and in well-situated conditions, tigers try to stay away from places where they feel presence of people.
However, the worsening of living conditions, first of all, the lack of ungulates, the main item in tiger diet, can make the tiger approach human settlements and kill livestock and dogs for food. This causes reasonable tension and concern among local residents.
To resolve such situations, special Rapid Response Teams were formed in the Russian Far East to minimize human-wildlife conflicts. When people encounter a predator near settlements, they contact such a task force. Rapid Response Teams come and, if necessary, capture and place the predator to a rehabilitation center. There are two such centers in the south of the Far East: Utyos in Khabarovsky province and the Rehab Center TIGR in Primorye.
At rehabilitation centers, animals are provided with treatment and food, and prepared to be released into the wild. Before release, predators are tagged with a GPS collar: it allows specialists to track and control its movements and behavior in order to minimize conflicts with humans.
The tiger is one of the perfect creations of nature. Powerful, large and incredibly beautiful beast. The tiger is considered the so-called umbrella species: being at the top of the natural pyramid, it is one of the final subjects by which one can judge the state of the entire ecosystem. If it’s good for the tiger, then it’s good for everyone. That is why it is so important to preserve this beautiful big cat, which serves as an indicator of the natural well-being, the balance of this system depends on it.
In current conditions, tigers cannot survive without humans help.
WWF-Russia, in cooperation with other conservation organizations, put a lot of efforts in the Amur tiger conservation. This is serious and complex work of the public and the state. For example, over the past 20 years, a whole network of protected areas has been created, anti-poaching work has been strengthened, rehabilitation centers and mobile hospitals have been developed and supported, and a lot more. WWF-Russia conducts programs to restore ungulate numbers, monitors the preservation of Korean pine forests, as well as the number of tigers using camera traps.
Man and tiger are neither enemies nor friends. However, life shows that we need each other in order to maintain the balance and harmony between humans and nature.
Tiger heroes
Tiger conservation is a complex, comprehensive work. Raids and ambushes on poachers, caregiving to orphaned or distressed animals, study of diseases of large cats and causes of death, capture of conflictive animals, feeding of wild boars and deer to support tigers dietary. We present to you people who perform their noble work - conservation of the wild nature of Russia.
Did you see them?
