China News Service, Changchun, December 16 (Guo Jiashi Hongyu) The endangered wild Northeast tigers and leopards are expanding their territory in China.
The latest spot where the footprints of the wild Siberian tiger was found is Jiaohe, Jilin, which is about 300 kilometers away from the tiger and leopard core area on the Sino-Russian border.
The tiger traces were found by several local villagers. They recently found dozens of suspected Siberian tiger footprints on Xitu Mountain, Xinzhan Town, Jiaohe City, and reported them to Jiaohe Forestry Bureau immediately.
Appraisal by the presence of professional and technical personnel, it was confirmed that the Siberian tiger passing by here was left behind.
Liu Ayong, head of the Forestry Administration Section of the Forestry Bureau of Jiaohe City, said that the footprints in the snow are very clear, with a palmrest width of 10 cm and a step distance of 70 cm.
Based on the site conditions and data analysis, this should be a sub-adult Siberian tiger.
Experts also judged that this Siberian tiger did not live there, and should come from the direction of the Huangni River in Dunhua, Jilin.
In 2017, China set aside an area of 14,600 square kilometers in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces to carry out a pilot program for the Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park system, dedicated to protecting and restoring wild tiger and leopard populations and realizing their stable reproduction in China.
This move has achieved obvious results.
In the Siberian Tiger and Leopard National Park, traces of tigers and leopards have appeared frequently in recent years.
On November 2nd, 13th and 24th this year, there were successive direct encounters between humans and Siberian tigers in the mountainous areas of eastern Jilin. Fortunately, all the people involved were in the car and no human-tiger conflict occurred.
Compared with the above situation, the encounter with the two employees of the State Grid Hunchun Power Supply Company on the 11th of this month was much more dangerous.
When they went into the mountain to troubleshoot, they found a wild Northeastern leopard in the jungle less than 20 meters away from the work place, and they ran back into the car quickly.
But in general, these tigers and leopards are still within the scope of the Siberian tiger and leopard national park.
The Jiaohe where the tiger traces were discovered this time belongs to the inland area of Jilin, and the last recorded traces of the Siberian tiger in the area date back more than 20 years.
Before that, the Huangni River was the place where wild Siberian tigers were found closest to inland Jilin.
According to the Siberian Tiger and Leopard National Park Administration, in recent years, the Siberian tiger population has recovered rapidly. They need to expand more territories to meet their survival needs, and it is inevitable to spread inland.
Northeast China is the hometown of wild Siberian tigers and leopards. However, due to the increase of human activities and forest degradation, the population and habitat of wild Siberian tigers and leopards once shrank.
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