🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
A tiger cub no older than four months old has been rescued from an illegal trap set by poachers in Siberia.
The cub, which had gotten its paw caught in the trap in a woodland area of Russia's far-eastern Dalnerechensky District, was rescued after a local resident reported it to wildlife authorities.
It is thought that the illegal traps were set by poachers to catch badgers, according to The Siberian Times.
A team of wildlife protection experts arrived on the scene, where they sedated the young female tiger and worked to release her paw from the trap.
Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.
The young tiger was an Amur tiger, the largest cat species in the world.
Whilst on the scene they noticed signs that a mother tiger had been around the site, but she did not approach the rescue team as they worked to release her cub.
Sergey Aramilev, general director of the Amur Tiger Center, which took part in the rescue, told The Siberian Times: "We knew that the mother tigress stayed close all the time, so we acted as fast and as carefully as we possibly could [to not] provoke an attack."
Once the tiger's paw was released, the team decided to leave her in the wild since her injuries were deemed minor. "We are certain that the cub has already joined its mother, and that it will be more cautious in the future," Aramilev said. "We received the information just in time to be able to save its life."
The Amur Tiger Center has been studying the Amur tiger population since 2013. The species is listed as endangered under the IUCN Red List.
Other organizations involved in the tiger's release included the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife Protection of the Primorsky Territory, the Directorate for the Protection of Wildlife and Specially Protected Natural Areas, and "employees of a special group" the Amur Tiger Center said in a statement. Photos show how staff worked to rescue the sedated cub.
Amur tigers, formerly known as Siberian tigers, may be largest cats in existence but their numbers are low. It is thought that there are only between 500 and 550 individuals in the Russian far east, with some ranging into China and possibly North Korea, according to the Wildcats Conservation Alliance.
Despite the low numbers today, conservation efforts by Russia have helped the species away from the brink of extinction.
The Wildcats Conservation Alliance says Russia became the first country to ban tiger hunting shortly after World War II. That same decade there were less than 50 of the tigers remaining.
Males weigh on average up to 190 kilograms while females tend to weigh on average up to 130 kilograms. They can run at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour and jump up to 16 feet high.
Their coats are a lighter shade of orange than other tigers and, due to the colder climate in that part of the world, thicker.
