Amur Tigers

[Apex Titan]

FOOTAGE RECEIVED OF THE MOST NORTHERN TIGER IN HISTORY

A camera trap captured an Amur tiger on the coast of Wrangel Bay in the Khabarovsk Territory, not far from the Shantar Islands. In the modern history of observations, this is the northernmost point of the region, where it was possible to record a rare predator. The unique shots were received by the photographer Mikhail Korostelev.

It is widely known that the Amur tiger is the northernmost subspecies of the tiger. Double fur and a thick layer of fat help him survive in conditions of constant freezing temperatures and high snow cover. Nevertheless, even such a serious "outfit" has a limit, and the animals included in the predator's diet do not really like to go so far to the north.

There are, of course, among the tigers and real pioneers, or as they are also called pioneer tigers. Scientists managed to trace the path of one such predator in the north of the Khabarovsk Territory in 1999. Then the northernmost point of the trip fell on the Annensky waters. Now the data needs to be updated: a camera trap installed on the coast of Wrangel Bay in the Khabarovsk Territory recorded the Amur tiger almost 190 km to the north (the camera was set at 54 ° 16'58.0 "N) than in 1999.

“In Wrangel Bay, Khabarovsk Territory, we observe bowhead whales and live in a camp on the shore. Around the taiga. And here in the taiga, for the last three years, I have been setting up a camera trap, photographing different animals: brown bears, reindeer, foxes, etc. - Mikhail Korostelev comments . - This year, leaving from there, I left the trap for another month. Leaving at the end of the season, a friend took the trap and brought it to me. Imagine my surprise when, looking through the catch, I saw a tiger in one of the frames!"

What made the Amur tiger go so far north? Most often, young tigers and those males who, for some reason, have lost their own plot and have not been able to crowd out their neighbors, leave the limits of the range.

“More often than not, we can talk about the dispersal or distant visits of tigers only in winter, when it is possible to fix the tracks of predators in the snow. We do not place random camera traps in places where even a tiger can potentially dwell, therefore, shots of such long visits of a male tiger to the north in modern history are a rare success of a photographer, ”comments Sergey Aramilev, general director of the Amur Tiger Center . - In appearance, the animal looks very good and we can say that it successfully finds food for itself. We will continue to collect information about the male and use it in our upcoming tiger census.”

It is possible that “wanderers” are not only among tigers (just tigers are more noticeable) and that nature has laid a great meaning in this. Wandering provides natural dispersal and genetic diversity of populations.

True, wandering life is fraught with great dangers. For long-distance travel, the tiger willingly uses roads, paths, clearings. This often leads to meetings with the person that do not always end peacefully. In this case, information about the tiger has already been transferred to the hunting supervision of the Khabarovsk tiger, which will monitor the safety of the unique northern tiger.

http://amur-tiger.ru/ru/press_center/news/1641/ Reply