A logging company in far eastern Russia is planing to protect Siberian tigers by dismantling unused roads that run through the tigers’ habitat.
The Siberian tiger – one of the largest land predators in the world – is highly endangered, with an estimated population of only about 500 animals remaining.
And the tigers are under threat from poachers.
But now, an unlikely alliance of environmentalists, the Siberian forest service and a logging company are trying to make poaching a bit more difficult.
The simple plan is to remove existing roads that crisscross the tigers’ habitat in Primorye – Russia’s far eastern province that borders China and North Korea.
The roads were initially created by TerneyLes, the largest logging company in the region. Although no longer in use, they provide poachers with easy access to the forest.
To make matters worse, the tigers have also started to use the roads as a convenient way to travel across the forest, making them even easier targets for the poachers.
Even when the poachers aren’t going after the tigers themselves, they often hunt deer and boars, depriving the tigers of their key prey.
Funded by several international conservation groups and supported by the Terney County Forest Service, TerneyLes will dismantle the roads by creating trenches, removing bridges and bulldozing sections that act as bottlenecks along the road, such as where a road runs between a cliff and a river.
The work is scheduled to start later this summer.
hf/sad (Wildlife Conservation Society)