Siberian tigers enjoy family time in NE China's national park

As temperatures rise at the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, several Siberian tigers and their cubs were seen on a "spring break".

According to experts, their mother is about six years old, making her a very young tiger mom. These three tiger cubs are not her first litter. Just last year, when she was still a novice mother, she successfully raised three other cubs.

Professor Feng Limin from the School of Life Sciences at Beijing Normal University said this mother tiger, identified as number 44, managed to raise all three cubs from her first litter, which was quite challenging. With her second litter, these cubs are also growing up healthy. As spring arrives, she will take the cubs out more and more frequently.

The monitoring center of the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park Administration Bureau stated that almost every detail of the life history of each Siberian tiger and Amur leopard is meticulously recorded by the real-time monitoring system scattered throughout the forest. From the latest monitoring data, it can be seen that over the past month or two, a group of tiger mothers have brought their cubs out to enjoy the warm sunshine in the vast wilderness. The number of cubs carried by these tiger mothers mostly ranges from two to three, with some even having four, and most of them are expected to grow into adulthood.

Duan Zhaogang, the director of the bureau, said that according to monitoring data, in 2023, a total of eight Siberian tiger breeding families were recorded, with the survival rate of cubs increasing from less than 20 percent to nearly 50 percent now. The stable growth of the species' population indicates a significant improvement in the quality of the habitat, leading to a remarkable recovery in the ecological functions of the park.

In addition to the tigers, over the past two months, a group of Amur leopard mothers have also brought out their newborn cubs. The cubs are robust and growing well, bringing hope for the recovery of the Amur leopard population, which numbers less than 100 globally. The Amur leopard is listed as a critically endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and it is under the first state-level protection in China just as the Siberian tigers.

(Cover via CFP.)