News Archive

(February 20, 2014)   -   It has been nine months since the tigress named Zolushka (Cinderella), saved from starvation in the Russian taiga, was returned to the wild by the Wildlife Conservation Society Russia and Russian partners. Now, halfway through her first harsh, Russian winter, Zolushka appears to be not only surviving, but actively courted by the single male tiger roaming her territory. Read more here

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(February 11, 2014)   -   The Wildlife Conservation Society’s Russia Program and the Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Zapovednik (SABZ) have jointly surveyed Amur tigers on SABZ territory using camera traps since 2006. On a recent routine camera trap check, it was discovered that one of the resident females, Varvara, has a new neighbor. This previously-unseen female was first photographed in November 2013. The territory she settled was once occupied by Varvara, as two years ago the tiger population in the reserve crashed and...

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(February 02, 2014)   -   WCS Russia staff captured an incapacitated Amur tiger in the Amur region of the Russian Far East, but what ails the tiger is still a mystery. Sunday evening WCS staff members Nikolai and Alexander Rybin assisted in immobilizing the cat a second time to obtain x-rays and samples needed to determine whether diseases are affecting the tiger. Although 300-400 tigers live in Khabarovskii and Primorskii Provinces of the Russian Far East, tigers disappeared from the more western Amur Province more tha...

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(December 18, 2013)   -   In mid-November 2013, the Wildlife Conservation Society’s office in Vladivostok received a request from the Ministry of Natural Resources of Khabarovskii Province to assist in capturing a conflict tiger in the village of Sukpai. This tiger had been preying upon village dogs for weeks, and the locals there were too frightened to go outdoors at night. News of this tigers exploits were a regular feature on the local news in Khabarovskii Krai, raising concerns amongst many local people even be...

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(December 02, 2013)   -   In early September 2012, cubs were born to Varvara, one of the tigresses living in the Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve (SABR). We knew this because Varvara had been tracked using a GPS collar since October 2011 under a joint monitoring program conducted by SABR and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Based on her GPS locations, it was clear that Varvara confined her cubs to a small area in a remote corner of the reserve during the first two months following birth. Only when the cubs became s...

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(September 30, 2013)   -   Vladivostok — September 25, 2013 — In  late August, the WCS Russia Tiger Conflict Team worked with a variety of partners to translocate two orphaned tiger cubs to a rehabilitation facility. The resulting events included a cameo by Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin himself. Read more here.

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(September 29, 2013)   -   NEW YORK (September 23, 2013) — A camera trap set out for Amur tigers in the Russian Far East photographed something far more rare: a golden eagle capturing a young sika deer. The three images only cover a two-second period, but show an adult golden eagle clinging to the deer’s back. Its carcass was found two weeks later, just a few yards from the camera, initially puzzling researchers.The images first appeared in the September issue of the Journal of Raptor Research, and quickly ...

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(August 15, 2013)   -   New York, N.Y. — August 15, 2013 — A study spearheaded by the Wildlife Conservation Society and the University of Minnesota has shown that the world's largest owl – and one of the rarest – is also a key indicator of the health of some of the last great primary forests of Russia's Far East. The study found that Blakiston’s fish owl relies on old-growth forests along streams for both breeding and to support healthy populations of their favorite prey: s...

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(August 14, 2013)   -   Winter Ecology of the Amur Tiger, first published in Russian in 1987, is finally available to an English-speaking audience. This classic Russian monograph contains results of the most extensive snow-tracking of Amur (or Siberian) tigers ever conducted. Russian biologists Anatolii Yudakov and Igor Nikolaev tracked Amur tigers on foot for hundreds and hundreds of kilometers through the snow in the southern Russian Far East from 1970-1973, collecting information on movements and behavior. This upda...

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(August 13, 2013)   -   NEW REPORT IS THE FIRST PUBLISHED STUDY TO CONFIRM DISTEMPER AS A KILLER OF AMUR TIGERS NEW YORK (August 14, 2013) – The first-ever published study to genetically characterize canine distemper virus (CDV) in tigers confirms that CDV acts as both a direct and indirect cause of death in the endangered big cats in the Russian Far East (RFE). The study was conducted by health experts from the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Bronx Zoo (WCS), the Primorskaya State Agricultural Academ...

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