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Is There a Future for Amur Tigers In A Restored Tiger Conservation Landscape In

Northeast China?

Introduction

There are many animals in the wild, while some are overpopulating the world, others are

close to extinction. The Amur tiger is one that people are becoming very worried about because

they are also extinct. The world leaders and governments created the Global Tiger Initiative

(GTI) that all the countries came together and agreed that they all wanted to help the population

of these tigers so they plan to double the size of the tigers by 2022. After realizing the Amur

tiger was close to extinction they have found their homes that need to be restored. Northeast

China will be restoring these sites through the Tiger Conservation Landscapes (TCLs).

Currently, China doesnt have any Amur tigers in their country that they are aware of. The TCLs

will need to restore these sites by bringing prey, forested areas, protection from humans or other

threatening factors. They hoping to find a larger enough area for the tigers to be able to roam

from one TCL in China to another TCL in Russia including other tiger conservation areas

(TCAs) within the countries. They will be able to monitor the Amur tigers and make sure they

have a successful future in the wild. Also, they hope that this will not only help the Amur tiger

but other tigers and other wild life animals.

Methods

The process of restoring and building a new future for these tigers will be a lot of time

and work. There are many things that go into restoring such a large place. They have to restore

trees, plants, water supply, make sure humans are no longer destroying these habitats, and ensure

a safe future for them. The TCLs in this process of helping these tigers will also be helping
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endangered leopards, wolves, eurasian lynx, black bears, and brown bears. When they complete

the restoration of these areas, it will be successful in helping not only the Amur tiger but many

other rare and endangered species in the forested ecosystem of Northern China.

Since there are no Amur tigers in China, so they surveyed the number of tigers in Russia.

They found 595 fresh tiger tracks in the snow in far eastern area of Russia. They used the

geographic information system (GIS) landscape variables for tiger habitat. This included various

kinds of forests with human dominated landscapes. China didnt include a study for prey since

they dont have any tigers but used Russian habitat models. They used three habitat modeling

approaches, the first was Ecological Niche Factor Analysis (ENFA) which is where they

compare what is used by the tiger in correlation to what is available in the area. The second is

the RSF model which detects the predictability capacity of the environment. The third is the

expert habitat suitability model which is associated with land type, elevation, proximity of roads,

and villages. All of these things are important in making a successful and safe environment for

these tigers.

Results

All of the habitat models came out to be about the same for all the outcomes, none of

they where better than the other, so they couldnt choose one over the other one. The RSF and

ENFA models predicted low quality habitat based on the known tigers in Russia. They identified

nine TCAs, two are shared with Russia and one area with Korea which wasnt include since

Korea didnt participate in the studies. All TCAs had less villages and roads than the rest of

China. They were able to determine the top four TCAs including the expected tiger population.

Currently, the top four TCAs have 80% of the tigers in the study. They determined the 12
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highest possible linkages between TCAs based on costs, distance and next to villages, then

selected the top three which are TCA 1 and 4, between TCA 1 and 3 and TCA 1 and 3.

Discussion

Their TCA used three separate habitat models that helped scientifically and politically

while assuming that all three models had weakness and strengths especially since Northeast

China had no Amur Tigers. The Chinese government will be using these models for their tiger

conservation planning. Also, these models included the known facts about tiger habitat: tigers

dont like steep slopes or high elevations, deep snow, coniferous forests and people. They

suggested that their model averaging be used to identify other TCLs across Asia for more tiger

recovery areas. They believe that China will meet the GTI by 2022 by using the top four TCAs

with a habitat for 72 adult Amur tigers.