Tigers — Russia & China

“Camera trap footage taken between 2013 and 2018 identified 55 Amur tigers in four forested landscapes in northeastern China: Laoyeling, Zhang-Guangcailing, Wandashan, and the Lesser Khinghan Mountains. . . The reason for the tigers’ sudden appearance in northeast China is due, in a large part, to a Chinese national policy called the Natural Forest Protection Project (NFPP), Miquelle said. “By stopping [the] harvest[ing] of trees in many parts of China, they essentially made whole villages whose economy was based on timber harvest economic wastelands,” Miquelle said. “Many of these people have had to leave the region to find new work, thereby pulling more and more people out of the forests.” With the timber industry shutting down, the forests were able to recover, and that’s “a big reason why tigers are expanding.” "

“As is occurring elsewhere, Asian mammals, especially large carnivores and their primary prey species, are threatened or declining due to human activities; these impacts have important consequences for ecosystem sustainability. For example, top predators such as tigers (Panthera tigris), leopards (P. pardus) and Asiatic lions (P. leo persica) have suffered significant contractions of their numbers and ranges. . . Temperate mixed forests in Northeast Asia support diverse fauna and provide habitat to endangered Amur tigers (P. t. altaica) and leopards (P. p. orientalis). However, defaunation in this area has been particularly severe due to multiple anthropogenic threats. Large- and medium-sized animals in Northeast China are threatened by habitat degradation, rapid land use change, hunting and human–wildlife conflict."

"China’s Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park, which will be 60 percent larger than Yellowstone National Park, with added significance. The park’s location is critical, biologists say, as it will provide a refuge for tigers and leopards in China — where dense human populations have left the big cats more hemmed in than in sparsely populated Russian regions — and will enable the animals to roam between the two countries. . . Dale Miquelle believes the area could conceivably support a population of around 75 Siberian tigers — about triple today’s numbers. “In a world where there only about 3,500 tigers left,” said Miquelle, “that is a very significant contribution to the global population, and would tie into a much larger population on the Russian border.” "

Major threats today facing Amur and South China tigers are poaching for tiger bones and TCM and habitat loss due to logging, conversion to agriculture, urban expansion, road construction, mining, and fires. Visit Panthera, Save China's Tigers and World Wildlife Fund for more information and tips on what you can do to help.

“A single brewery in Taiwan imports two thousand kilograms (4,400 pounds) of tiger bones a year—perhaps 150 tigers worth — from which it brews one hundred thousand bottles of tiger-bone wine. The Chinese themselves have finally run out of tigers… so they have begun importing tiger bones on a massive scale, ignoring the complaints of conservationists, and are willing to pay prices smugglers find irresistible.”

“The largest protected area in Russia within tiger range (Sikhote-Alin Reserve), which covers four thousand square kilometers (nearly 1,600 square miles), harbors fewer than thirty animals, at least half of which regularly use areas outside the boundaries of the reserve. Because Amur tigers require such vast home ranges, no single protected area can retain a viable population of tigers. Conservation in Russia will therefore depend upon development of a core network of protected areas interspersed with multiple-use lands than integrate tiger conservation with sustainable use of natural resources by humans.”

"In a report submitted to Cat News in 2003, the IUCN Cat Specialist Group wrote that 'an eight-month field survey organized by China's State Forestry Administration in 2001-2002 failed to find any of this race [South China] of tiger in the wild. But it is thought that there might be some individuals surviving in the wild, although not forming a viable population with a long-term future." No official or biologist has seen a wild South China tiger since the early 1970s.

The first Amur Tiger Conservation Strategy for Russia was approved by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources in 1996. It was aimed at summarizing half-a-century’s experience in protection and research, formulating key principles and outlining a comprehensive set of activities for the long-term conservation of the tiger. Russia now has a numbers of laws to protect and conserve the Amur tiger. "At present, an area of approximately 36,000 km2 within the range of the Amur tiger (ie. 20% of its total range) falls within protected areas. The establishment of transboundary migration corridors with special protection regimes to ensure free movement of animals is being planned."

“Growing concerns led to a call by the Standing Committee in September 1993 for specific action in China, Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan, where trade in tiger bone and its derivatives appeared to be continuing... After CITES directives and a threat of trade sanctions by the USA, China, South Korea and Taiwan all banned trade in tigers and their derivatives. Hong Kong and Singapore also enacted strict trade control measures. Together these actions marked the most concerted international effort ever undertaken to stop illegal trade in tigers and their parts and medicinal derivatives… TRAFFIC surveys of China’s market in 1994, 1995 and 1996 of hundreds of medicine shops across China showed that while tiger products were still being sold, they were not widely available and, in many cases, seemed to be products left over from before the ban.”

"In 1977 the Chinese government belatedly awoke to the fact that the tiger population was decreasing alarmingly, and in an effort to stop the decline, a law was passed forbidding the hunting of all tigers. Unfortunately, this law could not be strictly enforced and hunting continued."

The last Caspian Tiger was seen in the early 1970s, and there are none in captivity."

"During the 1950s and 1960s, the government of the People's Republic of China declared tigers a nuisance and sponsored a program designed to eradicate them in the country…Under this program, thousands of tigers were shot, bringing the South China tiger close to the brink of extinction."

“In 1947, a blanket ban on the hunting of the Amur tiger was introduced. It succeeded in halting the long-lasting decline in numbers of tigers and stabilizing the population. Isolated population groups gradually began to recolonise suitable available habitats, but the distribution of the tiger remained scattered.”

In 1947, Russia banned hunting of the Caspian tiger, but the ban came too late for the Caspian tiger.