Siberian tigers & Amur leopards Photography tours! Come to discover wild Russia!

[Olga.bohai]

(12-05-2018, 01:05 AM)Pckts Wrote: Does the safari consist of only hides or is there searching for animals depending on the season?

Thank you for your interest!
We have 3 safari tours, they differ between each other.
Leopard Photography tour consists of the hide only as the main purpose of our tourists is to take pictures of Amur leopard there.
Leopard & Tiger Photography tour consists of hides, setting and checking camera traps, ATV journeys where you can see a lot of ungulates, searching for marks and footprints.
Tiger Photo tour consists of hides, taiga trekking for footprints and marks searching, camera traps setting and checking. As Lazo tiger tour is based in the private forestry between two tigers reserves we can provide additional adventures to the tour to amazing mountain rivers , beautiful sea bays, islands and other taiga activities. This is upon request. Also we have several other tours which not include big cats watching but could be added to any photo tour on request. I'll add our tour catalogue below.

(12-05-2018, 01:05 AM)Pckts Wrote: What are the sightings like, would you say that sighting animals is rare or will you pretty much guarantee animal sightings?

Depends on tour type. We can't guarantee animals sightings as it is wild nature and it is unpredictable, but the chances are pretty good:

Leopards Photo tour: 3PAX in the hide 50% success, 2PAX 70% success, 1PAX 90% success to see leopard. As the leopard is cautious animal and doesn't like to hear any noise from the hide, but some tourists can be noisy. In Leopards tour it is difficult to see other animals, a couple of tigers walk there but usually avoid the hide, our tourists saw boars and deers while driving though the reserve. As for bears they usually sleep because this tour is done from November till March.

Leopards & Tigers tour: the chances are very good to see both cats. We're checking camera traps records from the main trails there and the animals go one by one with the difference 1-2 days. Plus bears, a lot of ungulates, yellow-throated marten, lynx etc. This is the new tour, so we can't tell about hides chances now but this is the wildest territory in our region and the quantity of animals is the biggest one. Plus amazing landscapes and no human activity at all.

Lazo tigers tour: this tour is operated in the hunters club between two tigers reserves. It means that there are a lot of deers, boars and bears there as the owner does his best to provide enough food for these animals. This fact attracts a lot of tigers to that area. There are more tigers now than in the neighbored reserve: 1 big male and 7 other tigers (females with cubs). The chances to see the tigers are good, the hunters see them every week, sometimes 1 big male, sometimes female with 2 cubs. Sometimes the tiger steels hunter's prey)) In July and August bears activity is very high there: they come (both brown and black) to the fields every day).

(12-05-2018, 01:05 AM)Pckts Wrote: What are the odds of sighting a Tiger or Leopard?
What else do you recommend for tourists when visiting, is there something else to do as well before or after the safari that tourists seem to enjoy?

So I answered about the chances and activities. We can create our tours according to customers needs. Here in Primorsky krai we have everything: clear sea and rivers, mountains, taiga, caves, reserves & national parks. Infrastructure is pretty bad and this is good new for us as there are no crowds of tourists here now and our main territories stay untouched, thousands of hectares of absolute wilderness.
One of our tourists said: " some photographers go to Kamchatka or Alaska for brown bears, another go to Sri Lanka for leopard, third travel to India for tigers and black bears, but you have everything here in one place and this is really the only place in the world where you have them all (except snow leopard tour which we're going to start soon in another Russian region), both tropical and northern species! " The same with flora here: tropical ferns and lianas get on with coniferous forests.
Birdwatchers will love Sikhote Alin Reserve in the North.

Here is our  tour catalogue 2019-2020

I will be glad to reply any other questions! Reply