NEW YORK, June 30. /TASS/. A male Amur tiger, Umar, was flown on board an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to New York as part of an international conservation program for the endangered species, an informed source told TASS on Friday.

Later this week, the animal will be taken to the Denver Zoo.

After a quarantine of between 30 and 60 days, the animal will be transferred to the zoo’s tiger enclosure. The zoo has already prepared a female tiger for him.

The Moscow Zoo runs a successful program of breeding tigers in captivity. As part of its conservation efforts, Umar’s brothers will be transferred to zoos in Antwerp (Belgium) and Susono (Japan).

The Amur tiger is listed as ‘endangered’ on the IUCN Red List with some 480-540 species left in the wild. 90% of its population inhabit Russia’s Far Eastern Primorye and Khabarovsk territories.