New measures for Amur tiger preservation to be developed following census - minister

VLADIVOSTOK, February 17. /TASS/. The Amur tiger census results will help develop new measures for protecting the animal population in the Far East, Russia’s Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology Sergey Donskoy said on Monday. "We will be able to preserve this beautiful rare striped feline," Donskoy said in Vladivostok at the ceremony of signing the agreement on the strategy of saving the Amur tiger. "Taking into account the results of the census held on all territories where Amur tigers live, we will adopt measures on stabilizing the wild cats’ population and increasing their numbers," he added. One of the measures of preserving the rare animal is Strategy for Conservation of the Amur Tiger in the Russian Federation developed by Russian ecologists and adopted by the Russian government in 2010. Several public organizations, including the Amur Tiger Center and the World Wide Fund of Nature (WWF) in Russia, participate in the implementation of this strategy. The census of Amur tiger population started in the Far East on January 31. It has now been completed in all regions, except for several areas in the Khabarovsk Krai where heavy snowfalls stalled the work of experts. The collected data will be analyzed by a special method that allows determining the number of tigers in the Far East, their gender and age. The final results will be made public in October 2015. According to preliminary data, the population of Amur tigers is currently stable while the number of Amur leopards has increased from 30-35 to 57 animals. Read more