Vladimir Putin
One of the three tigers Russian President Vladimir Putin released in May has wandered across the Russian border and strayed in the Chinese territory, BBC reported.
Also known as the Amur tiger, the 19-month-old Siberian tiger named Kuzya crossed from the wilds of eastern Siberia in search of food and is now in China, particularly near the Sino-Russian border river, Heilongjiang, according to authorities.
Currently, Chinese forestry officials are trying to track Kuzya's movements, as it had been tagged with an electronic device.
If necessary, cattle would be released into the Taipinggou nature reserve in north-eastern China for Kuzya, reserve director Chen Zhigang told Xinhua on Oct. 9, Thursday.
"A Russian expert called to tell us the location of the tiger and expressed the hope that we can protect it," Chen said, adding that Kuzya will not have a problem searching for food considering the rich diversity of wildlife in the 20,000-hectare nature reserve.
According to Chen, personnel have been dispatched to set up more than 60 cameras in an attempt to capture Kuzya's image and remove traps that may exist. They also required forestry police officers to alert local farmers about the cub's presence.
Putin, an advocate of nature conservation, enjoys elaborate outdoor photo stunts that sometimes involve animals.
On May 22, the Russian president visited the Amur region, where he was photographed releasing Kuzya and two other Siberian tigers named Borya and Ilona at the Zhelundinsky nature and wildlife reserve located in a remote part of the region.
Two years earlier, the three tigers had been found with two other tigers named Ustin and Svetlaya, starving in the Ussuri taiga forest near the Russia-China border, according to Russian news agency TASS.
Scientifically called Panthera tigris altaica, Amur tigers are decreasing in number. Experts estimate that there are only about 450 to 500 of them in the Khabarovsk and Primorsky territories, and approximately 40 of them are victimized by poachers each year.
