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Tiger released by Putin suspected of pouncing on hen house in China

Kuzya is one of the three rare felines tagged with tracking devices that Putin helped release in the Far-Eastern Amur Region in May

BEIJING, October 14. /TASS/. Chinese border guards suspect Kuzya, a Siberian tiger released into the wild by Russian President Vladimir Putin in spring, of pouncing on a hen house and killing five chickens in north-east China, the Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday.

Three days ago, residents of Taipinggou village reported the incidents to the local border guards who arrived in the village and spotted big animal's tracks, feathers and blood near the broken hen house's fence. Forestry officers who came to the site later said that the tracks belonged to a Siberian tiger, most likely Kuzya, Xinhua reported.

Kuzya is one of the three rare felines tagged with tracking devices that Putin helped release in the Far-Eastern Amur Region in May. Last week Kuzya was spotted in Taipinggou nature reserve in north-eastern China. The reserve's employees said they had set up more than 60 cameras to locate the tiger.

The Siberian tiger, also known as the Amur tiger, is on the Red List of Threatened Species. In 2010, Russia launched a national strategy to protect the Siberian tiger, the largest of the five tiger species. According to World Wildlife Fund, some 450 Siberian tigers are left in the world.