Tigers in Russia !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Amur tigers

The Amur (or Siberian) Tiger has the scientific name is “Panthera tigris altaica” and is the largest living cat in the world. The name ’Siberian’ is actually incorrect because these tigers do not live in Siberia but the Russian Far East in the Amur-Ussuri region of Primorski and Khabarovski Krais (States) whilst a few are found across the border in northern China and Korea.

The Tiger in Russia
The Amur tiger has had a difficult time over the past hundred years with a low of less than 50 individuals in the middle of the twentieth century. It gained protection and numbers increased until the present day when numbers may be up to 400 adult individuals.

Habitat
The habitat of the Amur tiger (and leopard) is a unique forested area in the Russian Far East states of Primorski and Khabarovski Krais. In the summer the forests are dense with varied vegetation which is both deciduous and coniferous but in the winter these forests are cold and snow bound. Much of the terrain is mountainous and rugged but is now crossed by roads, human settlements and more recently logging roads. Each adult tiger needs a huge area of land for its territory — up to 40km by 40km for an adult male whilst the female home range is usually smaller. Amur tigers need much larger areas of habitat to survive due to the relative lack of prey so that any particular area of habitat will have a less dense population than a similar size of habitat in one of the tiger ranges such as India or Thailand. For this reason a very large area of healthy habitat is needed to sustain a population of Amur tigers that is viable for the future. Therefore conservation groups are working hard to create protected areas in the Russian Far East and to find ways that humans and tigers can live side by side.

Characteristics

The Amur tiger is the largest and heaviest subspecies of tiger.
To survive winter the tiger has fine but long fur and a layer of fat that allows it to stand the bitter cold. The coat is lighter in colour than other tigers and it has large paws which act rather like snow shoes.

Weight of adult male:	up to 800 lbs
Weight of adult female:	up to 500 lbs
Length of adult male:	up to 10 feet