Siberian Tigers: The Loss of Beauty in the Frozen Tundra

Siberian Tigers are probably the most beautiful of the Big Cats and the most successful of the all the tiger subspecies. Compared to the five other subspecies left, the Siberian Tigers are doing relatively well. There are between 331 and 393 adult tigers left in the wild; 250 of them are breeding adults. Just as an introduction, I’ll be giving a little bit of a background of Siberian Tigers, for those who may not be familiar with the amazing animal.

Siberian Tigers have orange colored fur with black stripes and white markings. They tend to be lighter than their Bengal cousins with two different coats for summer and winter. The winter coat is a lighter color than the summer coat, but is denser, longer and softer.

Siberian Tigers are the largest and heaviest of the Big Cats. The longest female on record was 145 inches from nose to tail, weighing in at 260lbs, and the longest male on record was 162 inches from nose to tail, weighing 490lbs. However, captive tigers can weigh up to 1,000lbs! I believe that tigers that have gotten that heavy in captive were obese tigers that didn’t get enough exercise.

The ranges of Siberians are the Primorsky Krai and the Southern Khabarovsk Krai area. There is an isolated population along the Eastern Manchurian mountain system. The first two areas are important because they create borders for two bioregions; the coniferous-deciduous complex and the Northern Boreal complex. These are key habitats for the Big Cats. In these areas, they can prey upon red deer, musk deer, pika, rabbits, salmon, wild pigs, and moose.

There are other predators in the same region that Siberian Tigers come across. Brown bears and black bears can become prey to the tiger. This usually happens when the ungulate populations are down. Though, they usually coexist with tigers by eating what the tigers leave after a kill. The biggest predator that the tigers put out is the wolf. Where tigers are dominant, wolves aren’t as numerous. The reason this happens is the prey that wolves and tigers eat are really the same. Tigers are bigger, so the wolves don’t want to take on the cat (I’m assuming anyway). Conservationists use this to the tiger’s advantage. They urge the hunters to at least tolerate the cats, since they don’t affect the ungulate populations as much as the wolves.

The biggest threat to Siberians is poachers. Historically, Siberian tigers roamed Eastern Russia without any human interference. But the Russian Civil War, running from 1917 to 1923, nearly wiped out the wild tiger population. But in 1947, Russia ended the legal hunting of tigers. Tigers from the Eastern Manchurian Mountains were cut off from the rest of the population by the railroad. In the 1980’s, the Soviet Union fell and the amount of poaching went up because of illegal deforestation and bribed park rangers. Another thing that is threatening Siberian tigers is their genetic makeup. They have gone through a genetic bottleneck, similar to what cheetahs in Africa went through. However, captive tigers have higher genetic diversity compared to their wild counterparts.

In light of all this bad news, there are conservation efforts to save the wild population of tigers. Tigers are banned from international and domestic trades, including state and country trades. In 1992, the Russians formed the Siberian Tiger Project that studies the ecology and role of tigers. The people involved in the project radio collar tigers to monitor their land use patterns, food, social structure, reproduction and mortality and human-tiger interactions. They also try to mediate human and tiger conflicts.

Tigers are also being bred in captivity, mostly for the zoos and some wildlife preserves. There are about 4,692 tigers in the United States; 160 tigers are in the Species Survival Plan. The European Endangered Species Programme, the equivalent of the SSP, has 230 tigers involved. China has almost 4,000 tigers in their zoos and preserves, putting them as the second largest amount behind the US.

Last, but not least, human and tiger interactions in Siberia! Tigers normally attack humans when they feel threatened or are injured and need food. The first recorded tiger attack was in the 19th century. In 1997, an injured Siberian tiger had eaten two people before the park rangers found it and shot the cat. Another case in 2002, a tiger had attacked a man, who miraculously survived. But, his story smelled funny. So the park rangers tracked the tiger and tried to catch her but she sauntered away. After the team lost her, she killed a young woman. Park rangers found the body and the tiger about 50 feet away from each other. The tiger was severely injured with a poacher's snare around her neck, almost severing her vertebrae, trachea and esophagus. Veterinarians tried extensive surgery to save her life, but unfortunately, the tiger died from infection. The man that survived was charged with poaching and served two years in jail.

A famous US incident happened in 2007 at the San Francisco Zoo. A Siberian tiger escaped it's enclosure and killed one person while injuring a few others. The tiger was shot by police in order to keep him from hurting others. The zoo caught some flack from the press because the fence was only 12.5 feet. The international standard is 16 feet.

Siberian tigers are the most stable of the subspecies of tigers. However, they still need protection from poachers. Education and constant management of the Big Cat will help its numbers grow.