Tiger fights plaque attack! Siberian big cat flosses on a nearby branch to stop his teeth decaying

When you spend your life tearing through chunks of meat, you're bound to get a bit stuck between your teeth - not to mention the inevitable plaque build-up that follows.
But it's not a hygiene hazard that has escaped this Siberian tiger.
Showing off his impressive dental skills, he makes use of a handy branch to give his gnashers a good floss.
 
Doing so regularly can help prevent gum disease and gingivitis which can cause bad breath and tooth decay.
Photographer Jutta Kirchner, who captured the action in the big cat's enclosure at Tiergarten Schvnbrunn zoo, in Vienna, Austria, said: 'I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

'I've never seen an animal actively try to clean its teeth and I thought it was amazing.
'But I suppose they get things stuck in their teeth just like anyone else and find it just as irritating as the rest of us.'

Jutta has previously photographed Siberian tigers playing in the snow at the zoo.
The Siberian tiger lives mainly in the Sikhote Alin mountain region in east Russia.
In 2005, there were under 400 adult Siberian tigers left in the region, with an adult breeding population of about 250.
The population has been stable for more than a decade thanks to intensive conservation efforts.



 

Russia Sends Siberian Tigers to Iran to Save Species

Two pairs of Siberian tigers are being sent to Iran from Russia as part of a joint project to boost the species' dwindling numbers  in the Middle Eastern country.

The Siberian, or Amur tigers, will arrive at the Miankaleh wildlife reserve on the coast of the Caspian Sea later this year.

The region's Caspian tigers have been almost wiped out because of excessive hunting and changes to their environment. Iranian zoologists chose the Amur tigers as a replacement because of genetic similarities.

The plan is to send the tigers to Iran during the winter to replicate as near as possible the Siberian weather conditions they are used to and reduce stress on the animals.

There are only a few hundred Amur tigers left in Russia.

In 2010, two Siberian tigers from Russia were housed at a zoo in Tehran, including a pregnant tigress, but one of them died.

Eleven tigers in a single photograph is a rare sight, indeed

Tigers are exceedingly rare. They're also very solitary creatures. So why are there 11 of them gathered in this photograph?
These aren't your typical tigers. The cats you see here live in China's Heilongjiang Northeast Tiger Forest Park, the largest Siberian tiger breeding base on Earth. When it was founded in the mid eighties, the Park had only 8 tigers. Today, that number is estimated by some to be upwards of 800.
New Scientist's Rowan Hooper writes:

The Siberian tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) - also known as the Amur tiger - is classified as endangered on the IUCN Red List. Most of the estimated 400 Siberian tigers in the wild are in Russia, with a few in China. The wild ones, not unlike those in this tiger park, are heavily inbred, having passed through a genetic bottleneck in the 20th century, during which 95 per cent of all tigers were killed.
This means that although the Chinese park contains hundreds of Siberian tigers, and there are those wild ones in Russia, the population's genetic diversity - which is a good guide to its vulnerability to extinction - is equivalent to that of just 14 individuals.

These tigers live, hunt, play, and even feed together — taking meals from trained caretakers, prowling for young steers that are released into the park, and chasing down live chickens, which tourists can pay to fling at the massive predators.

Rare siberian tiger kills bus driver in China

A rare Siberian tiger attacked and killed a tour bus driver in northern China as he was checking his vehicle that was trapped in the snow, Chinese media reported.

The tiger pounced on driver Jin Shijun and dragged him into the forest at the world's largest Siberian tiger breeding base in the northern province of Heilongjiang, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said.

The report on Monday's attack cited a spokesman at the base, which has about 1,000 Siberian tigers.

Siberian tigers are one of the world's rarest species. An estimated 300 are left in the wild, but more than 5,000 are kept on farms and wildlife parks across China.

Tigers at Blank Park Zoo undergo rare insemination procedure

Two Siberian tigers at the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines underwent a rare artificial insemination today that could help the endangered species survive in the wild.

Natural breeding has failed for nearly a decade. Now researchers must wait about 40 days to find out if Goldy is pregnant by Kavacha’s sperm.

If successful, it would mark the first time this particular insemination method — advanced by scientists from the Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens — has helped Siberian tigers in captivity have cubs.

Two scientists from Cincinnati flew to Des Moines to help with the surgery. The project is a joint effort by the zoo, Iowa State University and the Cincinnati researchers.

Scientists said if the procedure is perfected with frozen semen, it could be used to improve the genetics of both captive and wild populations.

Siberian tigers, after decades of hunting, poaching and habitat destruction, are critically endangered. Fewer than 400 are estimated to live in the wild; 143 are in Association of Zoos and Aquariums-accredited institutions.

The number of recorded artificial insemination attempts with tigers is between 50 and 60, but only two or three have been successful.

Help save Siberian tigers from extinction

To the Editor:

My name is Rowan E. Montgomery and I’m 9 years old. I want to tell you about Siberian tigers and how they’re going extinct.

Siberian tigers live in Russia. They are aggressive and hunt alone. They’re active mostly at night. In the nature special I watched on the Discovery channel, these tigers were so aggressive that they destroyed a fake Siberian tiger that the scientists put out. The fake tiger was so realistic that even the dogs thought it was real! By morning all of the color was taken off and the head, arms and tail were destroyed. This shows how powerful these animals are. They can grow as long as 13 feet and weigh as much as 700 pounds!

Siberian tigers are being killed by guns and other weapons for their body parts and fur. People sell the whiskers, bones and skins. In China they make medicine out of the bones even though it is illegal. Siberian tigers live in forests that are getting cut down for logging, taking away the land they need to live. Between 360 and 450 Siberian tigers are left in the world.

You could help to save the Siberian tigers if you wrote letters to the government, made a donation to a tiger conservation organization, or adopt a Siberian tiger from a zoo. You can make a difference if you just try.


Rowan E. Montgomery
Clay

Volunteers clear traps for Siberian tigers in NE China

Dozens of volunteers braved freezing temperatures and knee-high snow to clear traps for endangered wild Siberian tigers in northeast China this week.

In six groups, 73 volunteers searched six forest farms in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang in a four-day trap-clearing campaign that ended Friday.

The volunteers, age 18 and 65, included doctors, computer engineers, public servants and college students. There was even an Australian named Melissa Pettigrew.

If more people go out to clear traps in order to protect Siberian tigers, the endangered animals and their offspring can be better protected, Pettigrew said.

Winter is a tough season for the rare tigers as their prey becomes scarce, and the animals sometimes die from not having enough to eat or by coming into contact with a hunter's bullet or a trap.

Wang Lin, an initiator of the trap-clearing campaign, said that every winter, poachers set iron wire ring traps to catch wild animals like rabbits and roe deer as they can be more easily tracked on snow.

"The traps are cheap but very dangerous," said Wang. "They reduce the population of small animals, which are often prey for the tigers. They can even hurt tigers or help to catch them."

In late October 2011, a wild Siberian tiger was found dead with a trap around its neck in the city of Mishan in Heilongjiang, prompting environmentalists to call for enhanced wildlife protection.

Four to six wild Siberian tigers are believed to be living on the six forest farms, underscoring the importance of the volunteers' protection efforts.

Workers at one forest farm filmed a Siberian tiger last November, and with improving ecology, there have been more and more tiger paw prints spotted over the past couple of years.

One group of volunteers cleared 39 traps in the first three days, but their efforts were called off a day ahead of schedule after a forest farm worker told them he spotted a Siberian tiger and avoided the big cat by hiding behind a tree on Wednesday.

Two World Wildlife Fund experts tracked the tiger's paw prints on the snow for a day on Thursday, and found the female adult tiger roaming along a deserted forest road.

Siberian tigers are among the world's rarest species. The population of wild Siberian tigers is estimated at around 500, most of which live in Russia's far east and China's northeast.

There are only about 20 left in China, mostly in Heilongjiang and its neighboring province of Jilin, and according to Xinhua's calculations, seven have been found dead since 1993. Most of their deaths were related to human activities.

In November 2010, leaders from 13 countries, including China and Russia, committed to backing the Global Tiger Recovery Program, which aims to double the number of tigers in the wild by 2022.

China has set up nature reserves along its border with Russia to better protect the tigers' habitats by curbing excessive deforestation and poaching.

"Clearing one trap means reducing some danger," said Liu Tong, an expert with the New York-based non-profit organization Wildlife Conservation Society. "What we want to see most is no poaching and no traps in the habitats of the endangered Siberian tigers."