Wildlife Alliance

Amur tiger.

In the southern part of the Russian Far East, two creatures of nearly mythical status roam the snowy taiga forests and grasslands. Despite the harsh conditions of the region, the Amur tiger and Amur leopard, largest and rarest of all big cats respectively, are well-adapted to their unforgiving environment.

The Amur tiger’s heavy mane of fur around the neck protects it from the cold, and extra fur on its paws helps insulate the big cat from the snow. Called Amba, or “god of the forest,” by Russia’s native Udege people, the Amur tiger once roamed an area extending from Russia into China, the Korean Peninsula and Mongolia before a growing human population and over-hunting condensed its range to southeastern Russia.

Amur leopard.

Like its big cat cousin, the Amur leopard also sports long fur on its body, much longer than on other leopard subspecies. And similar to the Amur tiger, the Amur leopard’s range was once considerably more vast than it is today, stretching from southeastern Russia to China and the Korean Peninsula. Today, the Amur leopard is only found in the southwest region of the Russian Far East, close to the Korean and Chinese borders.

Despite being “well-dressed” for survival in their environment, the Amur tiger and Amur leopard face extinction in the wild, threatened not by the cold, but by poachers, the illegal wildlife trade, agricultural and urban expansion, logging, mining, forest fires, depletion of their prey base, and an overall lack of law enforcement. The number of Amur leopards left in the wild is thought to be somewhere between 26-34, and the number of wild Amur tigers is estimated between 430-530.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia’s borders have become more porous, allowing poachers better access to big cat habitat and the ability to transport wildlife and wildlife parts more easily between countries. An expanding human population and increased logging and mining has fragmented tiger and leopard habitat and confined the otherwise wide-roaming predators to isolated pockets of wilderness vulnerable to forest fires, illegal logging and a scarcity of prey.

In Russia's Far East, humans and predators compete for the same resources, as poachers kill much of the prey that tigers and leopards depend on to survive; roe and sika deer, wild boar, hares and other small mammals are disappearing from tiger/leopard habitat, driving these predators toward villages and livestock in search of food and ultimately conflict with humans.

The illegal wildlife trade, a global industry valued at $6-$20 billion in revenues each year, is rapidly consuming many of the world’s endangered and threatened species, including Amur tigers and leopards. Big cats are valued on the black market for everything from their fur to their bones and organs. If Amur tigers, leopards, Asiatic black bears, and other wildlife are not actively protected now, and if patterns of human behavior toward wildlife and the environment do not change, Russia's taigas and forests may one day be empty.

To prevent the disappearance of Amur Tigers, Amur leopards and their prey in the wild, Wildlife Alliance's independent Russian partner, Phoenix Fund, supports anti-poaching teams which safeguard tiger and leopard habitat daily and work with law enforcement authorities to arrest poachers and bring wildlife traffickers to justice.

Read more about Phoenix Fund's activities on our website, or visit Phoenix Fund's site.  To support Phoenix's conservation work, click here>>