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Title: Feared tiger crosses 400 miles to return to Russian city
Source:
UK Telegraph
URL Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201 ... 400-miles-return-russian-city/
Published: Nov 2, 2017
Author: Alec Luhn
Post Date: 2017-11-02 12:42:44 by cranky
Keywords: None
Views: 208
A Siberian tiger that was exiled a year ago after terrorising residents has completed an Odyssey of more than 400 miles to return to Vladivostok. Dubbed “Vladik” after a nickname for this port city of 600,000 near Russia's borders with China and North Korea, the tiger came near the village of Yasnoye near Vladivostok airport this week. Scientists have followed him via a GPS collar since he was released in Bikin national park after his capture last year. On the long trip back, Vladik crossed the Trans-Siberian railroad and killed and ate three Himalayan black bears. On Thursday, scientists said he had begun heading north away from the city. The news came as a hunt began for another tiger that killed a 43-year-old man gathering pine cones in the neighbouring Khabarovsk region. The beast will be tranquilised and either kept in captivity or “rehabilitated” and released, natural resources minister Sergei Donskoi said on Thursday. Vladik first appeared in Vladivostok in October 2016, roaming the suburbs for several days and coming within a few miles of the city centre. It was the first tiger seen in the city in 40 years. Cell phone and security camera footage showed the tiger prowling a nearby village and highway at night and darting between cars on a busy road in broad daylight. News of the striped predator stalking the streets sent Vladivostok into a de facto lockdown. Parents warned each other not to let their children outside, and a woman strolling in the woods was told to go home by police armed with assault rifles, The Siberian Times reported. Armed rangers staged a massive hunt for Vladik with drones and infrared imaging. Once they tracked him down and tranquilised him, they kept him at the Amur Tiger Centre for the winter before taking him via helicopter to Bikin national park. Once nearly extinct, the Siberian tiger has been making a comeback. In 2014, Vladimir Putin released three rescued tiger cubs into the wild. One of them sparked an international scare when he wandered into China, where the animal is often poached, before returning to his homeland. 
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