Fat Chinese tigers. Amur tigers have gained weight in a Chinese zoo (6 photos). International Tiger Day

Amur tigers living in the zoo in the Chinese city of Harbin have gained a lot of weight, which visitors could not help but notice. Overweight animals have become less mobile and spend most of their time in a lying position. Zoo staff noted that the weight gain is associated with the winter period, when many animals gain weight. According to them, by spring the predators should return to their normal form. The international animal protection organization Born Free Foundation has a completely different opinion on this matter, where they believe that tigers urgently need help.

According to Born Free Foundation President Will Travers, excess weight is the result of poor diet, poor attitude and harsh living conditions. According to visitors, the tigers became fat due to the fact that they were often fed by tourists, and writer and traveler Jarryd Salem noted that in this zoo, where about 800 Amur tigers are kept, the employees themselves overfeed the animals with chicken, goat and beef .

Photos of plump Amur tigers from the Chinese natural park of Harbin province are extremely popular on the Internet. Why? Because everyone loves cats. And the mustachioed striped ones look not like wild animals, but like cats. Fat, lazy, homely!

Many joke that tigers ate too much during the Chinese New Year holidays. Others compare them to grandchildren whose grandmother came to visit. But in this case, even the grandmother would have noted that the grandchildren were slightly out of shape.

Many are also worried about the health of huge predators. However, zoo staff assure that excess weight does not pose a danger to giant cats. This is a kind of protective mechanism against the harsh Far Eastern winter. Tigers, like bears, specially eat up during cold weather so as not to freeze so much and always have a reserve of energy. And the tiger park in China is trying to recreate for them exactly natural conditions with frosts down to -20 degrees. True, biologists did not take into account the situation that cats move less in captivity, so they urgently put them on a diet. They promise to restore the beauty and shape of the animals by summer.

FROM THE "KP" DOSSIER

The Harbin Amur Tiger Park covers an area of ​​ten thousand square kilometers near the Chinese-Russian border. It was created to preserve the population of these big cats. The park is now home to approximately 800 endangered species. There are only 500 Amur tigers left in the wild, mostly in Russia.

QUOTE OF THE MASTER

Someone will ask the question: “Why preserve a tiger or some kind of shelduck? Is the existence of hundreds of animals in the Ussuri forest really so important for a person?”

Yes, very important! It is important because any species of animal - giraffe, mouse or stork - is a unique creation of nature, with mysteries of behavior, with its own way of life and body structure. You can recreate a lost car, restore a house, a factory, a city, or restore a monument based on descriptions. It is impossible to re-design a lost animal! Only plush and nylon toys can be made in his likeness...

Seeing a school of flying cranes in the spring; hear the singing of nightingales, quails, cuckoos; accidentally scaring off a moose in the forest and knowing that somewhere in the Ussuri taiga there is a living, and not a stuffed, tiger walking around - this is the great joy of life!

We must fight for this joy before it is too late.

Photos of noticeably plump Amur tigers from the Harbin Zoo in northeastern China have appeared online. Fat animals waddling lazily from side to side have practically become the new meme on social media, but some animal rights activists are concerned about their welfare.

In the photographs, the tigers look very unusual: some have become so fat that it seems they cannot even get up from the ground.
The photos made many social media users laugh.

« When I die, I hope I return to this world as a fat tiger.”

« I’d probably be a shitty wild animal, just like that fat tiger.”

According to zoo staff, fat tigers are normal in winter. The animals' daily diet is specially increased so that they can more easily survive the cold months; by spring, cats should lose excess weight.

Despite this, one of the largest animal rights organizations, the Born Free Foundation, suggests that tigers have serious health problems.

Will Travers, president of the organization, told the publication that fattening tigers in winter is absolutely pointless and even harms the animals.

Judging by the photographs, the tigers are at the stage of obesity, this is an indicator of an inappropriate and unnatural diet. This also suggests that the animals did not have the opportunity to behave in the same way as in the wild. In my opinion, it's not funny or cute. These animals are sick.

Previously, the Harbin Zoo has already become the subject of discussion. Its employees were accused of negligence and cruelty: according to journalists, they abused animals, hiding food from them, and tourists were allowed to buy live chickens directly from the zoo and feed them to the tigers.

Editorial Faktrum shares with the reader photographs of fat tigers and hopes that they will soon return to normal.

In the main zoo of the Chinese city of Harbin today you can see tigers that weigh several times their normal weight.

According to the zoo workers themselves, the predators simply gained fat for the winter, almost like bears, and by spring the excess weight will go away on its own

However, zoologists sounded the alarm. World Animal Protection President Will Travers said these tigers need urgent help.

Travers believes that the tigers are either very seriously ill, or, despite all the prohibitions, they were fed by visitors to the Harbin Zoo.

Now the Harbin Zoo is home to about eight hundred Amur tigers, whose weight significantly exceeds the norm.

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KHABAROVSK, July 29 /TASS correspondent Sergei Mingazov/. Measures to protect the Amur tiger in the Far East are yielding results, their population is growing, and their habitat is expanding, said Sergei Aramilev, director of the Primorsky branch of the Amur Tiger Center, in an interview with a TASS correspondent.

“We ourselves actively protect tigers in the border areas of the Russian Far East; there are more of them and they have begun to actively expand their habitats. In China, they note an increase in the population of Amur tigers from 3-5 to 20-25 individuals. Half of them are those Amur tigers who live in two states, not noticing state borders,” Aramilev noted. According to him, young individuals are especially active in migrating to China.

We actively protect tigers in the border areas of the Russian Far East; there are more of them and they are actively expanding their habitats. In China, they note an increase in the population of Amur tigers from 3-5 to 20-25 individuals. Half of them are those Amur tigers that live in two states, not noticing state borders

Sergey Aramilev

Director of the Primorsky branch of the Amur Tiger Center

The migration of tigers to China does not mean that Russia has poor conditions for their habitat. Everything is exactly the opposite - the Russian population is growing, and young tigers are looking for new habitats.

In the Russian Far East, according to a one-time census in 2015, there are now 523-540 Amur tigers living in the Far East. Of these, from 417 to 425 individuals live in the Primorsky Territory, 100-109 in the Khabarovsk Territory, four adult tigers in the Jewish Autonomy, and two in the Amur Region.

"We understand what kind of tigers live in both Russia and China. Firstly, we have a border service that records traces of all living things that cross the border. Information about how many tigers have come and how many have left is quite extensive and early or “It’s late, but Russian science is receiving this data,” continues Aramilev. “Secondly, now along the border our neighboring states are developing a system of specially protected natural areas, where they have their own scientific departments with modern equipment and record keeping using automatic cameras.”

Poachers should be punished not with prison, but with large fines

Even at the beginning of the last century, Amur tigers were found in vast areas from Primorye to Lake Baikal. Then they found themselves on the verge of extinction.

Aramilev says that since the 90s of the last century, a variety of organizations have made a lot of efforts to preserve the tiger. “But these efforts were scattered and there was a certain gap between public and government organizations. Now this gap has been overcome and our center is responsible for uniting these efforts,” he notes.

In 2010, the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation approved the Conservation Strategy for the Amur Tiger. It spells out measures to preserve the Russian population of these animals until 2022. On International Tiger Day - July 29, 2013, the Amur Tiger Center was created.

Among the important aspects of the work to preserve the Amur tiger, the TASS interlocutor names the fight against poaching, work to preserve forests and ungulates, and the peaceful resolution of conflict situations involving tigers.

“It is necessary for people to understand that engaging in this bloody business - poaching and selling various parts of a tiger's body - is extremely unprofitable. We are not in favor of increasing prison sentences, because we understand that prison has not set anyone on the right path. And we believe that it is much more effective , if there are large monetary fines,” Aramilev convinces.

Preserving the tiger also means developing hunting. Hunting is a social activity; many people who live in rural areas often live solely from hunting. “Our task is to have so many ungulates that there is enough for both tigers and humans. We need to work with hunting farms, teach them technologies that contribute to the growth of the number of ungulates. But also to punish those who do not care about the rational use of natural resources, but simply destroys ungulates for profit,” explains Aramiev.

He also said that mechanisms for resolving conflicts related to the fact that tigers cause harm to people have been created: “The state must guarantee the population a timely and peaceful resolution of conflict situations. Groups have already been created that work for 4-5 years, they go to the site and "they take measures to scare away the tiger or catch it and transport it to a deserted place. Mechanisms have been developed to compensate for the damage caused by the tiger to people."

Where there is no food, there are no tigers

"To understand whether we are conserving the tiger correctly, we need accounting. Accounting does not directly affect the conservation of the tiger, but allows us to evaluate the work that is being done. And most importantly, we understand in which territories the population is growing and in which areas it is not. If the tiger is “or not, then there are good reasons for this: either there are no ungulates that serve as food for him, or there is no forest where both the tiger and ungulates live, or in the region they are barbarously destroying both,” says TASS interlocutor.

According to him, even after a complete census of tigers in 2015, science has only an estimated population size of this Red Book predator: “Counting everyone and everything will cost an insane amount of money, it’s better to spend it on protecting rare animals. After all, protection measures for 500 tigers are absolutely the same, as and security measures for 530".

After taking into account the year 2015, the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation decided to conduct a tiger “census” not once every ten years, as happened before, but once every five years. Therefore, the next accounting will be in 2020.

As Aramiev said, monitoring studies of Amur tigers in certain areas of their habitat are carried out on an ongoing basis using automatic photo and video cameras. “Here we also count tigers, but using more precise methods, and we understand how the population changes in these particular areas. And if we understand exactly how it changes in 20 percent of the range, then we understand what is happening to the population as a whole,” he explained the importance of such observation.

The most famous tigers of the Far East

In recent years, Amur tigers have become the focus of public attention. Many of them are known by name not only in Russia and the Far East, but also far beyond its borders. The tiger Amur from the Primorsky Safari Park gained worldwide fame for his complex relationship with the goat Timur, but few people outside of Khabarovsk will remember that the parents of Amur and his sister Taiga (also lives in the Primorsky Park) are Rigma and Velvet, inhabitants of the Amur Zoo named after Vsevolod Sysoev.

In 2014, the “presidential” tigers released into the wild gained media fame. Sick and emaciated tiger cubs were picked up in the taiga in early 2013 and placed in the Tiger Rehabilitation and Reintroduction Center in the Primorsky Territory. After treatment and special training, they were returned to the wild. All of them are known by name - Borya, Kuzya, Ustin, Cinderella, Svetlaya, Ilona.

Ilona, ​​Kuzya and Borya were released into the wild by Vladimir Putin in May 2014 (this happened in the Zhelundinsky nature reserve in the Amur region), but the definition of “presidential” was assigned to all six. Kuzya and Ustin became famous for their adventures, including on the neighboring side, in China, but Ustin never managed to take root in the wild and was subsequently returned to the zoo.

Of the six tiger cubs raised at the center, five live safely in the wild; the first “graduate” of the center, Cinderella, was the first to give birth. In the Bastak Nature Reserve in the Jewish Autonomous Region, she mated with the tiger Zavetny, another tigress, Svetlaya, also bred cubs, also on the territory of the Jewish Autonomy. Thus, the tigresses confirmed the success of the program developed by scientists from the A.N. Institute of Ecology and Evolution. Severtsov RAS technologies for restoring populations of rare large cats.

In the Khabarovsk Territory, the hero of media publications over the past two years has been the tiger Uporny, who first distinguished himself by conflict behavior (in November 2014, he attacked dogs in the Vyazemsky region), was captured, and after treatment and rehabilitation at the Utes Wild Animal Rehabilitation Center was released will in the summer of 2015. He found a place of residence in the Khabarovsk North, thereby expanding the boundaries of the range of the northern group of the Amur tiger.

By the way, in the north of the Khabarovsk Territory this year, a tigress brought a litter of three cubs, which is considered an extremely rare case and indicates that the northern group of tigers has a good chance of growing in number and expanding the territories inhabited by predators.

Another famous striped predator, the tiger Zhorik, lives in the Utes wild animal rehabilitation center. He was bought from a mobile zoo and saved by a veterinarian from Chelyabinsk, Karen Dallakyan; the tiger underwent a number of operations due to diseases of the cheek and jaw. The tiger is already 7 years old, and he moved to Utes in 2010.

International Tiger Day

On July 29, International Tiger Day is celebrated all over the world; in the Far East, Tiger Day is also celebrated on September 25. In Vladivostok this evening there will be a special screening of a documentary about the Amur tiger, filmed by the film studio “Call of the Taiga” for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which makes a huge contribution to tiger conservation. The screening will take place in a popular youth anti-cafe. “Today’s youth are concerned about various topics, and we are glad that they are ready to discuss issues of wildlife conservation with us,” said Yulia Fomenko, a representative of the Amur branch of the foundation.