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Tiger nabbed in Russia’s Far East, sent to rehabilitation center

Around 480-540 Amur tigers are living in the wild, with 90% of them in Russia’s Far East

KHABAROVSK, November 3. /TASS/. A tigress spotted in the Solontsovy settlement in the Russia’s Far Eastern Region of Khabarovsk was picked up and transferred to a local wildlife rehabilitation center, the feline predator was later named Tikhonya (or Quiet), a source in the regional Ministry of Natural Resources told TASS on Thursday.

"On November 3, a special group caught a tigress aged around 3-4 years. The large feline named Tikhonya was temporarily handed over to the Utyos wildlife rehabilitation center," Deputy Minister of Natural Resources of the Khabarovsk region Vasily Tolstykh stated.

According to him, while at the center, the animal will undergo a detailed veterinary examination, besides, experts will assess her capability to hunt in order to determine her future.

This tigress is among the various predators entering human settlements lately, whom wildlife experts from the Primorye and Khabarovsk regions have had to handle.

"I would like to highlight the precise and coordinated team work of the special groups on human-wildlife conflict resolution. All the tigers who posed a threat to humans have been promptly captured, without being injured and sent to rehabilitation centers," head of the Rare Species Preservation Department of the Amur branch of WWF Russia Pavel Fomenko said.

On October 19, the Vladivostok Police Department received a report from a resident of a small neighboring town saying that a tiger had been spotted in the suburbs. This set off a search for the tiger, involving the police, National Guards and the Hunt Control agency experts, which continued for two days. On the evening of October 20, the predator was discovered in a forest 20 kilometers away from Vladivostok. The tiger was immobilized using tranquilizers and brought to a rehabilitation center where he will spend the next several months and his future will be determined. He will be either set free into the wild, or sent to a zoo. A name for the tiger will be chosen though a contest.

The Amur tiger is on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. According to 2015 estimates, there are around 480-540 Amur tigers left in the wild, with 90% of them living in Russia’s Far Eastern Primorsky and Khabarovsk regions.