World Wildlife Fund

Through decades of collaboration, WWF and its partners helped bring the tiger back from the brink of extinction. We have pioneered conservation here, and we continue to improve management of the region’s protected areas and forests to aid the resurgence of Amur-Heilong wildlife and support the needs of local communities.

The Amur tiger has returned from the brink, but much remains to be done to save the world's biggest cat.
© WWF-Canon / Vladimir Filonov

The Amur tiger claws its way back from the brink
WWF has focused on reducing the poaching of tigers and tiger prey species, curbing illegal logging in tiger habitat, and protecting key species of ungulates, the hoofed mammals such as deer and boar upon which the tigers feed. These goals have been pursued through the establishment of anti-poaching ranger brigades, the creation of new protected areas, and the training and education of the public and customs agencies on the illegal trade of wildlife products.

These tracks were left by a female Amur tiger and her cubs 400 miles northwest of the tiger's core range.
© WWF-Russia

A recent WWF census estimated the region's current tiger population at less than 500 individuals. WWF anti-poaching brigades prevent both the illegal capture of the tiger itself and the killing of prey species, a critical commodity for a rebounding carnivore. Creating new protected areas, strategically located to create conservation corridors, ensures suitable tiger habitat and more robust genetic stocks. Training customs agents across the region, part of a global effort to reduce wildlife trade, is critical for the long-term viability of tigers in the Far East. More knowledgeable customs agents mean higher risks for those involved in the trade of tiger and other animal parts — ultimately leading to fewer tigers poached, a trend we have seen over the past decade.

The Ungulate Recovery Program
This innovative pilot project has already achieved striking success, and will provide the model for further work in aid of the Amur tiger and the critically endangered Amur leopard.

WWF's Ungulate Recovery Program provides more abundant prey for endangered Amur tigers and leopards.
© WWF-Canon/Vladimir Filonov

Phase I of this pilot project experimented with various methods of supplementing food for ungulates (hoofed animals such as deer and wild boar) during hard winters, and tactics for educating wildlife managers and hunters in three local hunting estates – a crucial buffer of wilderness around the region’s protected areas.

In just three years, these efforts increased the population of both ungulates and Amur tigers in the Phase I area, even tripling the number of ungulates on one estate. Importantly, the successes of Phase I inspired an additional 19 hunting estates — an area covering about 5 million acres of tiger habitat — to begin experimenting with similar methods.

As expected, the increase in prey population was followed by similar increases in predator population. And, where hunters initially felt threatened by the idea of a growing population of tigers, they now understand the benefits for the region's local economy and ecology.

In Phase II, this program will continue to tackle the issues surrounding prey species of the Amur tiger to assure these cats have sufficient food to sustain their growing populations.

Notable Accomplishments

1990s

• Initiated a number of field-based and public policy initiatives that helped save the Amur tiger, increasing their population by more than ten-fold

2000s

• Partnered with the government of Mongolia to establish the Onon-Balj National Park—a one-million-acre reserve in the headwaters of the Amur- Heilong
• Launched the Ungulate Recovery Program in hunting communities to protect hoofed animals—the primary prey for endangered Amur tigers and leopards. Since then, 19 additional hunting communities living among five million acres of tiger habitats have adopted this innovative approach 
• Assisted in achieving sustainable certification of 3.5 million acres of forests in the Russian Far East
• Successfully advocated an alternate path for the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline so vital leopard habitat would not be disturbed