The body of a Far Eastern leopard was found on the territory of the Nezhinskoye Hunting Lease in Southwestern Primorsky Krai on February 15. A necropsy was performed on the leopard, a female pregnant with one cub, but results pertaining to cause of death were inconclusive. WCS is working with partners to help ensure needed samples are taken in order to further analyze the situation.

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On the night of January 27, specialists from Primorsky Krai's Wildlife Management Department and the Wildlife Conservation Society responded to a call about an abandoned tiger cub found near a village in southern Primorsky Krai. Dogs had chased the cub into a small space between two heating pipes. The cub was brought to a rehabilitation center in the city of Ussuriisk, where the next day WCS staff immobilized the animal and conducted a medical exam. The tiger turned out to be a female, 3-4 months of age.

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In early January nearly 2 meters of snow fell in parts of northern Primorsky Krai, posing a significant risk to ungulates, which have difficulty finding food and moving about in such conditions, and also become easy targets for poachers. In order to help relieve the situation, WCS and the Russia Program of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) are providing small, emergency grants to wildlife management organizations and nature reserves in northern Primorye, allowing them to undertake activities to help ungulates survive the winter.

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Siberian Tiger Project specialists Nikolai Rybin and Ivan Seryodkin joined specialists from the Primorsky Krai Wildlife Management Department to help resolve the winter season’s first tiger-human conflict situation, involving a tigress killing dogs in a small village in western Primorye.

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Just over a year after its opening, WCS’s Sikhote-AlinResearchCenter is already attracting young wildlife biologists from throughout Russia and from abroad. Currently 6 graduate students (5 Russian, 1 Canadian) are living at the Center, conducting research and participating in Siberian Tiger Project field activities.

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On June 17^th  WCS staff wrapped up the Siberian Tiger Project’s 16th annual spring capture season, having radio-collared two young male Amur tigers, the cubs of seven-year-old radio-collared tigress Galya. Although the cubs “Ivan” and “Misha” were nearly two years old and larger than their mother, they had not yet begun dispersing from their natal home range when captured in May along the coast of the Sea of Japan

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Late winter-early spring 2008 represented the sixth consecutive year in which WCS and the Institute of Biology and Soils, RussianAcademy of Sciences conducted camera trapping surveys to monitor Far Eastern leopards at the northern end of their range in Russia, in some of the best remaining leopard habitat. Eight different leopards, including 3 males, 2 females, one cub, and 2 unidentified individuals, were photographed using camera traps between late February and early May.

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