Syberian Tiger

Running for fun, a young adult tiger named Koucher grabs at Niurka, a female, at a study site in eastern Russia. This game of chase is more than play. It shar­pens hunting skills and helps the pair bond and live harmoniously.

  A RESEARCH PROJECT SUPPORTED IN PART BY YOUR SOCIETY

The world of Koucher and Niurka is a three-acre enclosure in the village of Gayvoron, 190 miles from the Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve, one of four set up in this region to protect wildlife habitat. Russian scientists work in concert with the Siberian Tiger Project of the Hornocker Wildlife Institute, a project that Howard Quigley and I began in 1989 at the University of Idaho.

It is not known exactly how many Siberian tigers roam free; like most large, secretive carni­vores, they are hard to count. The latest estimate is around 430. Our work is aimed at increasing that number through better protection of the animals.

The story of Koucher and Niurka is sadly not uncommon. They were among two sets of cubs orphaned when their moth­ers were killed by poachers, according to Victor Yudin, a vertebrate biologist at the Rus­sian Academy of Sciences in Vladivostok. The cubs were given to Yudin for care. But two cubs were too malnourished to survive.

The winters of 1992, '93, and '94 were hard on Siberian tigers. Many were killed for their coats and body parts. The demise of the Soviet Union led to the opening of Russia's borders. That made it easier for illegal traders to cross into China and Southeast Asia, where tiger bones and organs are prized for their supposed potency as medicines and aphrodisiacs.

Obeying a primalurge, Koucher pounces on a plastic foam model of a deer. The model is mounted on a wire and pulled through the enclosure by a researcher who stands out of sight. For added realism, the model was scented with deer urine. The experiment was devised to study the predatory instinct among tigers who as youngsters had not received any training in hunting by their parents. Both Koucher and Niurka readily attacked the model, though neither had ever seen a real deer, a com­mon source of food for all tigers throughout Asia.

A similar response came when Koucher scaled a tree to get at the skin of a wild boar placed there by the researchers. However, it was not determined whether he reacted from predatory instinct or simple curiosity. The Siberian tiger, Panthera tigris altaica, at one time populated a great swath of Asia that stretched from Siberia south through China into North and South Korea. The Siberian tiger is in trouble largely because of its great commercial value. A single tiger can bring in $ I5, 000, more than most local people make in years.

The upswing in poaching during the early 1990s coincided with a decrease in government funding of conservation efforts and an increase in forestry, min­ing, and road construction that further shrank the Siberian tigers' natural habitat. Loss of habitat and overhunting has also reduced the populations of the tigers' chief prey: elk, wild boar, and deer.

Our efforts and those of sever­al other organizations are begin­ning to pay off. Reserve acreage in the region has been increased, antipoaching squads have been strengthened, and the courts are treating convicted poachers more harshly.

Perched outside the den where he was born, a male cub named Globus surveys the enclosure. He and a brother were born to Koucher and Niurka. (The parents them­selves may have been siblings; matings between close relatives may occur in the wild and don't necessarily produce genetically inferior offspring.) Niurka aban­doned the cubs, which is not un­common among first-time tiger mothers in captivity. Despite great efforts to save Globus’s brother, he died of malnutrition.

Though malnourished him­self, Globus survived, thanks care of Victor Yudin (lower left), who cuddled and bottle-fed the cub for months. By sev­en months Globus weighed in at 129 pounds and loved to rough-house with Yudin (below). Full-grown, Globus could weigh as much as 800 pounds.

In October 1996 we took Globus to the Minnesota Zoo near Minneapolis. At maturity he will add a welcome infusion of new genetic material to the captive-management program. Since Globus's birth, his par­ents have produced three more cubs. Because they are depen­dent on humans, the parents and cubs will have to stay in captivity. But our ultimate goal remains to work with Yudin to provide insights into tiger behav­ior and to develop conservation initiatives to secure a future for the tigers in the wild.

Learn more about Siberian tigers at http://www.nationalgeographic.com on the World Wide Web or on Compu­Serve at GO NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.

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